


Once More With Feeling

by DancingGrimm



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Porn, Anal Sex, Board Games, Clothes Shopping, Corsetry, Costumes, Drunkenness, Eventual Romance, Group Sex, Humour, Iron Bull owns a porn studio, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Photography, Pirates, Porn Star AU, Porn Video, Racism, Slow Build, Threesome - M/M/M, Virtual Reality, and stars in the films, awkward phone calls, background cullen/lavellan, sexual hang ups, sexual health, tags to be added as we go along, the Chargers help him run it, they're very good at it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-04-17 12:11:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 51,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14188695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingGrimm/pseuds/DancingGrimm
Summary: Dorian Pavus has a) no money, b) no romantic prospects, and c) moved to Skyhold, possibly the coldest place in the known universe.There are many ways to deal with such problems, and when Dorian is offered a rather unusual one, he snaps it up. Good pay, plenty of satisfaction, and enough excitement to take his mind off the chill. Not to mention proximity to his long time crush.When life gives you lemons...become a porn star!





	1. Scenario Set Up

**Author's Note:**

> This has been floating around in my brain for a while now, and I'm finally getting it out into the world. I hope you enjoy it.  
> Thanks to the marvellous SoManyJacks for all the encouragement.

It was really bothering Dorian that he felt quite sure who the man doing deadlifts in his peripheral vision was, and yet he couldn’t place him.

Even more annoying of course, because he was usually at his most clear headed when at the gym. After all, his pleasantly tiring routine took his mind off all the things that bothered him the rest of the time, such as how far away his friends were, and how fucking cold Skyhold was, and how the only reason he could afford to  _ come  _ to the gym on his paltry stipend was because the university had a deal with the place. He usually had his best ideas and most sublime thoughts while working out. So why could he not put a name to this man?

He wasn’t exactly the sort of man one forgot either; a big qunari - as in, big even by qunari standards - with wide-spread horns and a patch over one eye. His head was shaved, his face was stubbly, and angular and scarred, and his body was broad and almost excessively muscular. 

Where in the hell did Dorian know him from?

He glanced over from his perch on the leg press, just as the man heaved his bar up one more time, arm and shoulder muscles bulging fascinatingly, and their eyes met. 

The qunari gave a little smile, just a hint of one, then thumped his weights to the floor with a touch more show than necessary.

Dorian glanced away, but kept his head turned towards the free weights area. Just working on his legs, nothing doing. Only he could look over again whenever he wanted to, aaaand…

He looked over again. The qunari had picked up a pink towel from somewhere and was making slightly too big a deal of wiping sweat from his neck and upper arms. He met Dorian’s eye again, briefly, and took particular care to flex one bicep up nice and big before smoothing the towel over it. A little grin perked up the corner of his surprisingly sweet looking lips and-

Oh Maker.

Oh  _ no _ , why couldn’t Dorian have remembered who he was  _ before _ he’d got caught checking him out?

He was a fucking  _ porn star! _

 

*

 

It’s important to note, of course, that Dorian had not seen  _ all _ of The Iron Bull’s films. Just rather a lot of them. Or, at least the ones that didn’t involve women. Probably he  _ had  _ seen all of those… 

Besides the fact that The Bull fitted his type (deep voiced and muscular and big and also  _ big _ ), the films that came out of his studio were simply a cut above most porn, fun and smoothly produced, as well as very sexy.

The idea that he’d just been mildly flirting with a man whom he’d watched in various pornographic scenarios in order to improve his mastabatory experiences was… well, it had thrown him a little. Not that Dorian was a prude, quite the opposite. He really hadn’t been expecting to ever see him in person was all, which was a bit stupid as he’d always known that the studio he worked for was somewhere in Skyhold. It wasn’t that big a city.

He’d slipped out of the gym as casually as he could while The Iron Bull (and he couldn’t think of him as anything else now that he’d matched name to face) was messing with his weights. His own workout had been more or less finished, after all, and he had felt embarrassed for his sudden loss of cool, even if it had surely gone unnoticed by anyone else in the room. Now though, standing under a hot spray in the empty shower room, he began to regret his haste. Perhaps he could have flirted a bit more. It wouldn’t have done any harm. And after all, it would be rather fun to fuck a porn star, especially one he’d had a bit of a thing for for a few years…

No wait, that was dreadful. The poor man probably had to deal with that sort of presumptive thinking from half the people he met.

Well, half the people he met who recognised him.

Dorian was shampooing his hair when the door creaked, and he didn’t turn to look when footsteps crossed the changing room towards the showers. He wasn’t shy about his fellow gym-goers seeing him naked. When he realised that the footsteps had stopped at the archway into the shower room and not moved further, however, he paused in his washing and looked.

The Iron Bull stood in the arch, one forearm leant against the frame, a wry smile on his face.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hello,” Dorian replied politely. Oh fuck, how did he look? There was no mirror in the shower room for him to surreptitiously glance in and-

Oh hell, who was he kidding? He looked fantastic. His skin always looked amazing when wet, even in these lights, and he could feel blobs of shampoo suds sliding slowly down his back and chest. He stood side on to the arch, angled away a bit, so The Iron Bull couldn’t quite see everything he had. He must have been able to get a nice view all the same.

The Iron Bull ran his gaze up and down Dorian’s body appreciatively, his smile broadening, and Dorian shifted and swayed slightly under the spray of water, ostensibly washing, still not letting The Iron Bull see all of his front but showing off his body to best effect.

“You’re a hell of a good looking man,” The Iron Bull commented.

“Thank you for noticing.”

“I’m Bull. What’s your name?”

Bull. Just Bull, he’d said. An actual name, rather than a title.

“I’m Dorian.”

“Dorian,” Bull repeated, and Dorian thought that he might never need to watch porn again now he’d heard his name said in that wonderful rumbling bass. Bull took a step into the shower room, barely seeming to care that his running shoes or his tank top and shorts would get wet.

“You recognised me, didn’t you Dorian.”

Dorian let his best come hither smile spread over his lips. “I may be familiar with some of your filmography.”

“Yeah? You liked what you saw?”

“You could say that.” Dorian smoothed his hair back with both hands, letting his palms linger on the back of his neck, his arms raised in a way that flattered his pecs and his shoulders very well, as Bull took another step towards him and leaned a shoulder against the tile wall between two of the sprays.

“I like what I see,” Bull said.

“I’m  _ so _ glad.”

Was this going to happen? Dorian thought this was actually happening. He was going to bang The Iron Bull in a public shower and damn if that wouldn’t be worth losing his gym membership for. He turned fully towards Bull, leaning his own shoulder against the wall to mimic the other man’s posture, letting him look his fill. Bull looked, clearly enjoying the view. He was gorgeous. His top was getting damp in the bit of spray that struck him, the fabric clinging to the huge slabs of his pectoral muscles. Dorian’s mouth kept filling with saliva.

“Let me ask you something, Dorian,” Bull said in a low voice, leaning closer, intimately close.

“I’m listening.”

“Have you ever considered-”

Here we go,  _ here we go _ !

“-working in porn?”

“... I beg your pardon?”

 

*

 

That evening, Dorian sat in his little studio apartment, staring unseeingly at his laptop. At his right elbow on the desk lay the business card that Bull had given him (which was, sadly, all that Bull had given him) with a second phone number and two website URLs scribbled on the back. At his left elbow was a glass of wine, which he had very much needed.

He’d spent the last two hours looking up information about porn studios, which wasn’t as much fun as he would have thought it would be.

“I know it sounds weird, maybe a little scary,” Bull had said to him as they walked out of the shower room together. “But just have a look at our studio website, the legal stuff. And there’s a couple of other sites you could look on too. Just so you get the complete picture before you make up your mind.”

Dorian had just nodded numbly at him and taken the card. Bull had said something about an audition, and the phone number on the back of the card, and had run his hand over Dorian’s shoulder and down his arm before he left. 

Sitting at his little desk, Dorian reflexively touched his shoulder, remembering the warmth of Bull’s hand.

He’d gone to the site of Charge! Studios and had ended up on a page that he’d never dreamed of looking at before, which listed the studio’s policies and legal considerations. Dorian had had no idea previous to this evening just how many laws a pornographic business had to follow. Laws to protect performers and producers and buyers, laws about copyright claims and distribution rights, laws about sexual health and on-the-job injury; it actually made porn seem a bit dull. 

But then there was also a section that Dorian found himself reading quite thoroughly, the studio’s promise to their employees. It was oddly comforting. Far from the implicit seediness he had expected, the statement was all about things like informed consent and supportive healthcare. There was a paragraph on helping actors to keep their real identities private, and another on ensuring that behind the scenes workers’ union requirements were met. The last section alluded, with a polite lack of detail, to the wages the company paid, and the scale on which they were awarded, hinting gently that they paid better than most.

And then of course, he had visited Bull’s other website recommendations. The first was a guide to careers in porn, written by an actress who had worked for various studios including Charge! and listed her own experiences of how different employers had supported or circumvented the laws, how careers had changed over time, and so on. She was a good writer; Dorian found it very readable as well as helpful. Charge! Studios came out of it very favourably.

The second was a forum site, rather old fashioned in visual style but it clearly had a lively community. A community of pornography workers, in fact. It represented a rather overwhelming amount of information, but Dorian managed to find a thread where people were discussing the worst and best studios they’d worked for (again Charge! seemed to be a great favourite), and another in which pay rates were being compared. 

He finished reading and pushed himself back from the desk, wine in hand. 

Life had been… difficult, this last year and a half. Getting used to the different lifestyle here in the South, getting over the shock of betrayal… missing his family all the same…

His libido had taken a hit. Sex hadn’t felt the same since his flight from Tevinter. Where he’d revelled in excess and experimentation before, he now found himself holding back, perilously balancing between desperation and reluctance at every encounter. Casual sex had become a frustration, dating a tiresome game of second guessing himself, which always left the other party confused and annoyed.

Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad an idea to throw it all in for a while in favour of something else. Maybe looking at sex, experiencing it, in an entirely different way would do a sort of… hard reset.

He ended up giggling at his choice of mental phrasing then, a hint that he’d had a tad too much wine. He didn’t care.

It would be nice to have a bit more money too. Getting by on his stipend from the university was tough, and his attempts at finding part time work had fared poorly. Between prejudice against Tevinters and his admitted lack of experience at any sort of work beyond magic and academia, it was tricky to find a good fit that didn’t disrupt his work for Professor Wynne and his PHD research. A little treat now and then would be very nice indeed. He’d actually bought a shirt from a department store last month...

He stood up and undressed, then opened the door of his wardrobe and looked at himself in the mirror. Bull had been right; he was a hell of a good looking man. People had started calling him handsome before he’d even hit puberty, and he knew damn well that he was vain. But nobody could blame him.

He’d always rather liked it when there was somebody around to watch when he was having sex. Would it be that different?

People would pay to watch him have sex.

If he attempted it.

He knocked back the last of his drink and said out loud; “Screw it!”

And before he could change his mind, he did as Bull had instructed and called the number he’d been given, leaving a voicemail expressing his interest in an audition. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just FYI, it's important you know that I have no idea how a porn studio works. I don't even watch that much of it! But this idea would not leave my brain and I love it to bits, so.  
> Yes it will be Adoribull eventually, and it'll have a happy ending.  
> I'm hoping to update about every two weeks.  
> And if you do like it, please leave me a comment because I love them so!


	2. Casting Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian goes for an audition.

The following Saturday morning, Dorian took the bus to a part of town he’d never visited before, and walked through a slightly run down business estate for nearly a quarter of an hour before he found somebody to ask directions from. Outside one office unit, whose signage proclaimed it as ‘Nightingale Security Solutions’, a red haired woman sat on a bench, looking at a tablet. When he asked her if she knew where the studios were she gave him such a masterfully knowing smirk he felt like blushing.

The studio, it turned out, shared a parking lot with her building, and he only had to go around the side of the office unit to get there. It was an unassuming looking structure from outside;  wide with two stories, most of the windows on the ground floor shaded from the inside or paned with smoked glass. The signage was surprisingly subtle, just the company’s name and logo above the door. A sign next to the entrance gave business hours and a note that only people with appointments would be allowed entry.

Dorian had an appointment. And he was as certain about this as he had been for the last three days. Which was… mostly.

He went inside.

A smart looking receptionist at a neat desk took his details, welcomed him pleasantly, and sent him to a waiting room, where he sat awkwardly opposite a young woman in extremely revealing and poorly fitting lycra clothing and lipstick that clashed badly with her complexion. A door labelled ‘Conference Room’ loomed importantly, voices audible but indistinct coming from beyond it.

The young woman looked him up and down. “You shoulda dressed better,” she told him, and Dorian was sorely tempted to tell her exactly how wrong she was. The lady he’d spoken to on the phone had said to dress casually, so he had worn jeans, the slim fitting, grey, designer pair he had saved up for six months to buy, which hugged his ass like a dying man embracing religion. His deeply purple shirt lit up his skin and skimmed the musculature of his torso flatteringly. The several gold rings and studs in his ears, his septum ring, and the gold rings on most of his fingers, were that perfect, precarious balance of ‘just showy enough’. His eyeliner was on point, his nails flawless, his hair worthy of exhibition in a museum.

He looked spectacular, and he damn well knew it. She, on the other hand, seemed to have made every possible attempt to make herself look like an inflatable sex doll.

He’d been there for about ten minutes when the door to the conference room opened, and a cherubic looking young man emerged, scowling, along with a dark haired dwarven man holding a clipboard. The dwarf read out the young woman’s name, pointedly told the man where the exit was, and then Dorian was alone in the waiting room.

Now that he didn’t have any badly dressed people to be annoyed with he felt a little thread of nervousness creep in. He could hear voices from behind the door again, this time joined by an occasional burst of loud laughter from the badly dressed woman. What questions were they asking? How much did they want to know? Was he the last person of the day? Did they give him that slot because they didn’t expect much from him? Were they going to have interview fatigue by now?

He shoved all these thoughts brutally out of his mind and started on his usual stress reduction technique; he texted Felix. No details, just that he was nervous while waiting for an interview. Felix sent his reassurances, certain as ever that whoever the interview was with would be lucky to have Dorian, followed by a string of emojis, the combined meaning of which Dorian spent a couple of minutes unsuccessfully trying to puzzle out.

He was still engaged in this when the conference room door opened and the woman was shown out, now looking about as nervous as Dorian felt, followed by The Iron Bull.

“Hey, glad you gave it a shot!” the latter said brightly to Dorian, and offered a large hand to shake. Dorian rose and shook it.

“I’m rather looking forward to it, now I’m over the initial surprise,” he said.

Bull gave him a measuring look, and for a second Dorian felt like all the nerves of the last half hour were leaking out of his pores and making a puddle around his feet. Then Bull smiled.

“You’ll be great,” he said, patting Dorian’s shoulder. He waved the woman towards the door, then turned back to Dorian with a grin.

“Because I’m the one that, uh, scouted you, I can’t be on the panel for your audition,” he said. “Company policy, you know?”

“Yes, that’s very sensible,” Dorian replied, feeling a swoop of disappointment. 

“Don’t worry though, my guys’ll look after you.”

Then he opened the conference room door and gestured Dorian inside.

Dorian entered the room, offering those present his most charming smile and glancing around to take in the lay of the land. It was a large room, the centre of which was taken up with a long table surrounded with chairs. At one end, gathered into an intimidating knot, were six people. These comprised;

-The dwarven man from earlier who glanced up at Dorian, gave him a thorough once over, then began rapidly rearranging the sheaf of papers on his clipboard.

-A black human man with scars on one side of his face, whom Dorian was quite sure he recognised from… something. He’d seen him naked, at least.

-A tall and very Fereldan looking human man, with thick fair hair and a facial expression that suggested he would rather be anywhere but here.

-A blonde elven woman with pretty vallaslin, who gave him a wide, rather cheeky grin in greeting.

-A dark haired elven woman, who either had the worst case of resting bitch face Dorian had ever seen, or actively wanted to murder him.

Lastly, at the very head of the table, surrounded by papers and with one hand poised over the keys of a laptop, sat a surprisingly young looking human man, who could have been from nearly anywhere but whom Dorian somehow immediately recognised as a fellow Tevinter. A soporati, to be exact. 

A little voice in Dorian’s mind began seriously asking him why he was putting himself through this.

The Tevene man spoke briskly to confirm his name, then gestured for him to sit down at the far end of the table. The six of them stared assessingly at him, in silence, for a good two minutes. Dorian wasn’t sure if it was a genuine part of the process or an intimidation tactic, but if they wanted to discomfort a man who’d grown up with the eye of the Tevinter political system on him, they’d have to do a lot better. He arranged himself attractively in his seat and smiled mildly at them.

The blonde elf woman broke first, giving a snort and elbowing the Tevene man in the ribs. “Get on with it,” she said.

Intimidation tactic then.

The man rolled his eyes. “Okay then, Mister Pavus. May I call you Dorian? Good.”

The man, Kremisius Aclassi it turned out, briskly introduced himself and his colleagues. He was the managing director of the studio, and all those present were co-owners, along with Iron Bull, and held various positions in the studio as well. Dorian nodded attentively as Aclassi reeled off a statement that he had clearly gone through many times so far that day, outlining the studio’s employment policies and criteria. Finally, he sat back in his chair and folded his arms. The attention of the others, which had waned during the statement, was now intently on Dorian.

“So, a few questions for you Dorian,” Aclassi said and, with a masterful wave of his hand, he opened the floor to his colleagues.

“Why do you want to do this work?” the man who’d been introduced to him as Rocky asked immediately.

Dorian had expected this question, and had spent some time during a dull meeting the previous afternoon coming up with an answer that would be both positive and appropriate without being an outright lie.

“It’s something I’ve thought about for some time,” he said. “But never really very seriously until I met Bull and he told me about your auditions. I’ve always enjoyed sexual experimentation, and I find being watched very satisfying. I know those facts don’t necessarily translate to a career in pornographic film, but I feel like it would be a good fit for me.” He gave an artless shrug that he’d perfected in the mirror last night. “My academic career leaves me with enough free time to make real headway in another field, and it seems foolish to let the opportunity to do so pass.”

The smiley elf woman, Dalish, asked; “Have you ever done any pornography before?”

“Besides taking photographs and videos for lovers, no. Nothing that was ever made available to the general public.”

“Have you considered the potential for backlash?” Stitches asked gloomily. “Workers in any sort of sex-related field often find themselves victims of various problems.”

Dorian nodded. “Stalkers and anti-pornography crusaders, I imagine? As well as a general lack of respect?”

Solemn nods all around.

“I don’t savour the idea, but I’m quite certain that I’m equal to the challenge. I’ve come through similar difficulties, and I know when to stand my ground and when to run for cover.”

Kremisius gave him a curious look, but didn’t say anything more, just typed a few things on his laptop and sat back in his chair. He and the others exchanged glances busily for a few seconds, then nodded to each other. He turned his gaze back to Dorian. 

“Get undressed, please.”

Dorian got to his feet. “Put on a show?” he asked. “Or just…”

“Just undress for now.”

Dorian began to strip, a novel experience with assessing, detached eyes on him instead of the eager gaze of an excited lover. However, as always, he had complete confidence in his appearance. 

Having been told that he would be asked to undress, he had made damn sure he looked just as good without his clothes as he did in them. He wasn’t a particularly hirsute man, just a little nicely shaped fuzz on his chest, a neat treasure trail, and a moderate amount of hair on his shins and forearms. He always shaved his armpits because he didn’t like how puffy the hair there got, and he had spent the previous evening carefully depilating away the little patches of hair that he really disliked at the small of his back and on his shoulders, and neatly trimming his pubic hair. The dainty gold rings in each of his nipples matched perfectly the colour of the rest of his jewellery. The skin oil he’d applied after his shower had faded a little, but still gave him a nice, subtle sheen.

He shed the last of his clothing, noting happily that the crew at the other end of the table seemed appreciative. Stepping back from the table so they could see more of him, he gave a graceful turn, then settled into a casual pose.

Grim, having shown absolutely no change in facial expression since Dorian entered the room, got up and produced a small camera from among the pile of papers in front of him, requested Dorian’s permission with a twitch of his eyebrows and, at Dorian’s nod, began snapping photos. Occasional gestures from Grim were enough to tell Dorian to turn this way and that, move his arms here, position his legs like so, etc. In the meantime, the others were craning their necks to get a good look at him, exchanging meaningful looks that Dorian couldn’t interpret.

After a couple of minutes of this, Grim turned to Krem with a questioning expression, and Krem, in an almost comically business-like tone, said; “All right then, get an erection please, if you don’t mind.”

Dorian didn’t mind at all. As surreal a setting as it was, he was pleased to discover that he enjoyed the gazes of attractive men on him as much as ever, regardless of the presence of the two women in the room. And if he had needed any extra help, the though that Bull was somewhere nearby in the building, that he could come barging in at any moment and see Dorian in all his glory, and even  _ more  _ glorious than he’d been in the showers, was rather stimulating. A few practiced touches to himself and he had a proud erection.

Grim took a few photos of that as well.

“You’re exclusively homosexual?” Krem asked briskly.

“Yes.”

“Would you object to being asked to appear in a sex scene with a woman if you didn’t have to interact with her sexually?”

“Not at all.”

Grim’s camera clicked. Rocky and Dalish scribbled notes. 

“Do you object to portraying a rapist or rape victim?” Skinner, the resting-murder-face woman asked.

“I think it would depend on context, but generally no,” Dorian replied.

More scribbling, another photo.

The floodgates seemed to have opened, and the questions came thick and fast, with pauses only for the crew to take turns scribbling notes and for Grim to click his camera. Was Dorian averse to this, how would he feel about that, the scenarios varying from wildly outlandish to utterly stereotypical. Spanking? Double penetration? Name calling? Simulated torture? He answered yes to many, no to some, giving his reasons in the latter case where he felt necessary. Each answer was met by nodding heads and the scratch of pens, the click of keys.

After a few such questions, it occured to Dorian exactly what this was. A test, not just to gauge his answers, but to see if he could keep his cool, not to mention his erection, through it all. Honesty was the best policy, he decided. Honesty and picturing several of them naked.

After a while he took pity on Grim, who was starting to run out of angles to take his picture at, and he started striking poses. Dalish and Rocky were grinning at him soon after that, which seemed to take the wind out of everyone else’s sails. Slowly the demanding questions trickled to a halt.

“All right then,” Kremisius said, neatening some of the scattered papers in front of him. “Anything in particular you’d like to raise at this point?”

Dorian considered. “If we’re still considering things I’d prefer not to do, I am strongly opposed to calling anyone ‘Daddy’ in a sexual context.”

Krem nodded and dutifully noted it down, then glanced to his colleagues, left and right, to ensure they were done. Then he rubbed his hands together, a little gesture of satisfaction, and gave Dorian a slightly brittle smile.

“That’s very good thank you, you can expect to hear from us in the next few days. Please put your clothes back on before you leave.”

Which made Dorian wonder how many people had left here naked.   
  


*

 

Dorian travelled home again, with the idea of making the most out of the rest of his day by doing some work, though honestly he’d probably spend about an hour pacing and worrying, then start drinking.

He’d left the studio without seeing Bull again, which was a little disappointing. However, there had been two more people in the waiting room as he left, which for some reason had raised his spirits a bit. And his erection had subsided by the time he joined the queue for the bus, which was very helpful of it.

To make things better still, he walked into his building to find Sera waiting at the elevators. She was…  _ refreshing  _ was probably as good a word as any to describe Sera. The building was owned by the university, who let their students and staff apply for units there at low rates. Sera neither worked for nor attended the university, and yet somehow she had the apartment above Dorian’s and had lived there for two years, undisturbed by bureaucracy or law. Dorian suspected she had a friend somewhere in the system.

“Fancy!” she cried in greeting when she spotted Dorian. “Where you been? You look all-” she made some sort of complex gesture that Dorian chose to interpret as ‘flustered’.

“I’ve been for a job interview, actually,” he said as they boarded the lift.

She looked him up and down. “You look like you’re goin’ for a night out.”

Dorian sighed. He might as well tell her, he thought. She had ways of finding things out, and anyway, he was going to have to tell somebody sooner or later.

“It was at a pornographic film studio, actually.”

Sera grabbed him by the face and started screaming. Which was an overreaction.

“You’ve gotta tell me everything!” she demanded. “Come on, there’s wine!”

Which was nice of her to offer, Dorian thought. Until he realised that she was dragging him out of the elevator at  _ his  _ floor, and that she meant  _ his  _ wine.

But, wine was wine.

*

A couple of hours later, at about the time when normal people considered it suitable to start drinking, Dorian and Sera were sitting on the rug in front of his sofa, both more than a little giddy. That was another nice thing about Sera; she could usually keep up with him.

She’d just about stopped laughing.

“What do you reckon you’ll call yourself?” she slurred.

“Call myself?”

“Yeah. You’ve got to have a porn name. Cheesy one, like. It’s the law.”

Dorian snorted and opened his mouth to answer… then stopped. Damn. He possibly hadn’t thought this through. He had a promising academic career ahead of him, there was no doubt about that. He could swing this whole thing with the university, he was sure of it, but he would only get so far if the first thing that came up when somebody googled him was a collection of erotic films. A false name would be a damned good idea.

“How… how would one go about choosing a porn name, do you think?” he asked. “I can’t think of anything. Does it  _ have  _ to be something cheesy?”

Sera giggled. “Kelvin Thrust,” she said.

“No!” Dorian cried, and nearly choked laughing. “You did not just come up with that off the top of your head, surely!”

“Dick Jostler!”

“That’s even worse!”

“Roger Thoroughly!” Sera roared, and Dorian collapsed sideways onto the rug, clutching his stomach.

He was still wheezing when Sera pulled herself together enough to look something up on her phone. “I knew there was a proper thing we were supposed to do,” she announced. “There’s a way to pick one.”

Dorian pulled himself together and sat back up wiping his eyes. “What do you mean?”

Sera held out the phone to him. “It’s supposed to be the name of your first pet, plus the name of the street you grew up on.” She snorted. “My name’d be Tiddles Chantry. Not much use.”

Dorian considered. “My first pet was called Tulip, which I don’t think would suit me, particularly.”

“Why the fuck did you call a cat  _ Tulip _ ?” she asked, squinting at him.

“She wasn’t a cat, she was a pony. One of those little stunty ones from the Frostback Basin. She was sweet.”

“Trust you to have a fucking pony, Poshwank. Okay then, your first male pet.”

“That would be Cassian.”

“Cassian? Bloody hell, what was Cassian? A poodle? Peacock? Racehorse?”

“He was a goldfish.”

Sera stared at him hard for a long moment, then shook her head and sighed. “Okay then, Cassian. What about the street?”

“Well…”

“Come on, it’s not that complicated.”

Dorian smirked, knowing how much she would hate this. “The street the town house was on? Or the summer cottage? The estate wasn’t really on a street because the local village was named after it, so I suppose that doesn’t really count.”

Sera took a sip of wine just so she could pretend to be trying not to do a spit take. Which was an improvement, as there were still stains on the sofa from last time she did an actual spit take.

“The cottage was on Shore Drive, which is a bit boring. The townhouse was in a square. Corso Square, I think.”

It was a long time since he’d thought of that old place; after he’d started attending the Circle he only saw his parents during holiday time, which was mostly spent at the estate, and he hadn’t seen the townhouse in years. His airy playroom in the attic, and the vine festooned balconies on every floor, overlooking the long narrow gardens. His memories of it were full of sunlight and his parents’ smiles.

He took a large swig of wine.

“Okay then, Cassian Corso,” Sera said. “That sounds pretty good.”

“It sounds as trashy as hell, Sera.”

“That’s the point, idiot!”

Dorian sighed and rested his head back against the sofa cushion. Why the hell were they sitting on the floor, anyway?

Oh right; wine.

“I probably won’t even get the job,” he said quietly, and as the words left his mouth he had the horrible feeling of something being made concrete. Like he’d just tempted fate and gotten slapped for it.

“You will. You’d be great at shagging on video,” Sera replied. “You’re pretty for a bloke.” She reached out a hand to him, and Dorian chose charitably to believe that she had meant to give him a comforting pat on the cheek, rather than the slap on the neck he received. They’d really drunk too much.

“I would have been fabulous,” he said glumly, and drained his glass.

*

Dorian woke up the next morning to a snoring elf passed out across his legs, a mild hangover, and an email from Cremisius Aclassi in his inbox with the subject line:

_ ‘Cock worship?’ _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am particularly proud of the simile about Dorian's jeans.  
> I also can't get over the image of little Dorian, probably dressed in a miniature version of jodhpers and a hunting jacket, perched on the back of a wee pony. There'd be a dozen photos of him posed holding her reins, in the style of old sports prints, and he'd give her an angry lecture every time she stopped trotting and began eating the grass, only to be completely ignored.  
> Oh Dorian.
> 
> It's maybe worth noting that I'm imagining Dorian and Bull as a bit younger than in canon. Dorian's mid-twenties as opposed to 30, and Bull maybe early to mid 30s.
> 
> I'm enjoying this, hope you are too. If so, send feedback :)


	3. Popping a Particular Cherry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was actually in a state of relative calm at this point. Now he was here, he knew what he had to do; get naked and suck a cock. He was good at that. In fact, it was something of a secondary field of expertise, after necromancy.

His very first shoot at the studio didn’t take place until Wednesday afternoon, which was fortunate as that was the day that Professor Wynne, his mentor, closed the office early (officially to catch up with her filing, actually to attend a ballroom dancing class). It also meant that he’d had nearly four whole days to go through the cycle of panic, denial, excitement, self assurance, and further panic, over and over again.

 

Which was  _ wonderful _ .

 

As it was, he turned up as instructed at three on the dot, and was shown immediately to a small dressing room, given a bathrobe, and told to undress and report to make-up.

 

He was actually in a state of relative calm at this point. Now he was here, he knew what he had to do; get naked and suck a cock. He was good at that. In fact, it was something of a secondary field of expertise, after necromancy. And his time spent doing research the previous evening had been immensely reassuring, as the familiar routine of research often was.

 

Not research into the act itself, of course, but into the studios. He had looked at all their boring legal stuff before, but last night he had finally decided it was time to look into their actual output.

 

He’d seen rather a lot of their films over the years (more than he’d originally thought actually, though nobody could blame him for failing to note the producers of porn he was about to watch), mostly those involving The Iron Bull, but also a lot of their artier pieces, and several of their anthologies. That’s what he was about to film a piece for today; an anthology of several short scenes on a theme, the theme in this particular case being ‘cock worship’. The studios put out such a collection every couple of months and they seemed to be generally very popular, with some of the highest download figures on the site. 

 

There were series of other videos that were highly admired also, ones that had passed Dorian by due to them having featured female performers. He noted particularly one with a fascinatingly ugly dwarven woman, named only as ‘Cadash’, whose video cover images always seemed to depict her standing over a person wrapped up in chains, wielding a whip or similar implement, beaming at the viewer with disconcerting good cheer. Bull had appeared alongside her in several films, a series that Dorian had never paid much attention to, called ‘Double Dom’. 

 

It seemed the studio dealt in photography as well, which is where Dorian discovered he had recognised Stitches from. The photographs in that section of the site, some of which the studio had produced for their own uses and some which they had taken for magazines or other websites with performers who were contracted with them, ranged from the very basics of trashy spank-mags to some of the most delightful erotic art photography Dorian had ever set eyes on. Stitches mainly featured in the latter, his scarred body posed with great care in elaborate, challenging postures, sometimes decorated in delicate body paint, sometimes posed in synchrony with another model, or several.

 

And all of that, of course, didn’t even touch on the hit - no, the  _ brand _ \- that was The Iron Bull. The most consistently popular videos on the site were a series called ‘Ride the Bull’, installments of which had been produced steadily every few months since the studio opened, and each of which featured a scenario in which Bull would attempt to go about some normal, every day activity only for it to develop into one or more sexual encounters. Dorian had watched most of these, and he could see the reason for their popularity. Bull’s particular charms aside, the films were shot with creativity and flair, and the tone always allowed for a good deal of humour to come across, though never enough to overwhelm the sexual content, or tip it over the edge into the realm of the ridiculous. Then there were the staggering variety of other films he had starred in, playing a huge range of characters with surprising subtlety and skill. Dorian imagined it was difficult to give a real sense of character when one only had three lines of dialogue and a lot of grunting to work with, but Bull managed it.

 

And one simply couldn’t overlook the phenomenon that was Bull’s fanbase. Dorian had found blogs, meet-up groups, fanfictions, music video montages, everything you’d expect to see for a mainstream celebrity, and all of it created with such affection and glee. There was a hashtag on Instagram that Dorian had spent a happy 20 minutes exploring; #ridethebullpg which tagged selfies people had taken while sitting in Bull’s lap. Bull let a  _ lot _ of people sit in his lap.

 

Browsing through the Charge! site, looking over the huge range and quantity of material they had created and that had been created around their work, Dorian had felt at first rather overwhelmed, and later emboldened. He wanted this, he found. He wanted to be admired and lusted for and made magnificent under the camera’s eye. He wasn’t sure what it said about him. Frankly, he didn’t much care.

 

He was going to do this, and he was going to be fucking sensational.

 

He folded his clothes neatly into a locker, put on his bathrobe, and set off for the make-up room.

 

*

 

The chief hair and make-up artist, he was pleased to discover, was Dalish, the cheery elf woman from his interview. She was just seeing another bathrobe-clad man off as Dorian entered, and she gestured him to a chair while tidying up her station.

 

“Glad you took the offer,” she said briskly, getting a selection of palettes out of a wheeled cabinet and strewing them across the counter. “Bit short notice, I know, but those photos you gave us were really impressive.”

 

“Thank you,” Dorian replied. He glanced around the room, curiously. There were three hair and make-up stations, though this was the only one inhabited at the moment. There were photos stuck up around the mirror, more than one of which featured Dalish holding a toddler. Towards the back of the room, a wide archway gave a glimpse of what appeared to be a room full of costumes. Dorian could see the end of a clothing rack, its tightly packed contents wrapped in plastic covers, and above it several shelves with odds and ends of fabrics and costume jewellery hanging off them.

 

Dalish gave him a good once over, then gratifyingly announced that Dorian would have her out of a job. “Don’t need to do much,” she said brightly. “Your hair is great as it is, and the eye make up just wants a touch up. I’ll just give you a good layer of matte powder, and maybe a dab of highlighter, and I’ve got something that’ll keep it all in place.”

 

Dorian nodded but felt somewhat doubtful; he’d tried for years to figure out a way to make his make-up stay put during sex and had always ended up settling for ‘tastefully smudged’.

 

“How do you feel about it? Nervous?” She asked, patting powder over his cheeks.

 

“A little,” Dorian replied. “I think I’ll be fine once I get started though.”

 

Dalish nodded sagely. “Best to just get stuck in. They’ve put you with Delrin, who knows what he’s doing. He’s a good lad, you’ve nothing to worry about. I used to perform in these things, you know.”

 

“Really? What made you switch to doing make-up?”

 

“I had my little boy and decided it was time to hang up the lack of clothing, you know? People give you such shit when they think they’ve got an excuse to look down their noses at you, it’d be really hard on a kid. Pop your robe open and I’ll do your shoulders.”

 

Dorian obeyed and watched her mattify his shoulders in the mirror, struck by the realisation that she knew more about the man he was about to fellate than he did. Before he could work himself up to nerves though, the door opened and Cremisius walked in. He crossed the room to Dorian and handed him a clipboard with several documents attached to it.

 

“You remember what I told you on the phone?” he asked, without so much as a hello.

 

“Of course,” Dorian said, eying the clipboard. “I sign a release for this as a one-off and get paid a one-off fee. If you like my performance you’ll write me a contract for occasional work at set rates. That’s right, isn’t it, Cremisius?”

 

“It’s Krem. And yeah, that’s right. Sign these, will you?”

 

Dorian was handed a pen and quickly scanned the documents to make sure the wording and figures were the same as the copies Krem had emailed him. He signed and dated them and handed the clipboard back. Krem offered a small nod of thanks, then turned to the door.

 

“Oh by the way, Dorian,” he said, one hand on the door handle. “What would you like your screen name to be?”

 

Oh shit.

 

Krem flipped the documents up to a certain page and waited, pen poised, to write in a name. What the hell was it Sera had come up with? Kelvin something? No, that was awful.

 

Dalish was looking at him now, interest written on her expressive face.

 

Pet and street name! That was it.

 

“What do you think of ‘Cassian Corso’?” he blurted, and as soon as the words were past his lips he regretted it. It was all wrong, far too pompous and old fashioned and-

 

“Sounds good,” Krem said, noting it down. Dalish nodded and gave Dorian a bright smile, picking up the palette of highlighter.

 

Krem left and Dorian sat and watched his matte face being made carefully shiny again. 

 

Cassian Corso. 

 

It felt rather good to have a name for himself, actually. Cassian Corso would fuck men on film and Dorian Pavus would pick up the money for it and go home to work on his thesis. This would be okay.

 

Suddenly, he felt the hum of magic over his skin and flinched. Dalish startled, a very long handled brush in her hand and-

 

“Maker, is that a wand?” Dorian asked, astonished.

 

“Um… no? No! It’s a brush. The crystals are to help with blending!”

 

Dorian stared at her. “I’m a mage too, you know,” he said. “I felt that… charm? Is that what it was?”

 

She grinned weakly at him and nodded. “It works better than finishing powder.”

 

Dorian peered at his face in the mirror, then swiped his fingers across his highlighted cheek. The make-up remained perfect.

 

“I shan’t take offence at having charms cast on me without notice,” he said slowly, “if you teach me how to do that.”

 

“Okay,” Dalish said with happy relief. Probably she was a hedge mage or something, never been harrowed, but none of Dorian’s business. All he could think was she was damn lucky she hadn’t been born an age or two ago, when people still used full sized staves. What the hell would she have disguised a staff as?

 

*

 

Dalish walked Dorian into the studio after she had finished with him, chatting all the time. The building layout was odd, ease of navigation having been forfeited in exchange for making the sound studios as large as possible, as Dalish explained. She told him that the previous tenants had been a company that made infomercials, and Dorian could imagine them needing as much space as possible for all the pratfalls.

 

Finally Dalish led him through a door into a hangar-like space. Much of the room was empty, but there were several cameras and lights set up on stands surrounding an area in one corner which, Dorian saw as he drew closer, had been set up to look like a room in an apartment.

 

It was uncanny; he knew that outside it was a crisp and sunny autumn afternoon, yet the lighting and the cleverly painted backdrop views from the apartment windows would have easily convinced him it was late at night, the lights from skyscraper windows glinting in the distance. He vaguely recognised the set, actually; they must have got a lot of use out of these particular pieces of scenery. 

 

There was a rather luxuriously made up bed in the set, but also an ‘X’ of blue tape stuck on the carpet, which Dorian had an inkling he might be more likely to end up on. Several people were milling about, including a tall, long-limbed Fereldan looking man with black hair and blue eyes. Dalish led Dorian over to him, handed him over with a smile, and disappeared.

 

“You’re Cassian then?” the man said briskly, consulting a sheaf of papers in his hand. “I’m Carver, sort of directing this. You know what to do?”

 

“Naturally,” Dorian replied, and then realised he’d been stupid because he actually had about a million questions. He caught sight of a very good looking black human man on the other side of the set, who was the only person there besides Dorian wearing a bathrobe, so that at least answered one of the questions.

 

Carver nodded sharply. “I tend to do camera work mostly, tell the truth,” he said. “This is pretty simple though. No dialogue, unless you feel particularly inspired. You’ll be kneeling and Delrin will stand in front of you. Look as much as you can like you’re really enjoying it. Make a bit of noise, when he comes make sure we can see it. Up to you if you want to get yourself off as well, but the focus is going to be on you blowing him. Any questions?”

 

“...No actually.” The efficient run down had calmed his racing thoughts a little.

 

Carver led him over to the cross on the carpet and asked him to kneel there, then walked around him a couple of times brandishing a light meter and muttering. Dorian felt somewhat comforted by the assurance that this was no half-assed trash, but a real production; looking around the room, it was clear that everyone there was taking their job seriously.

 

Carver stomped off to start adjusting one of the lights, snapping out instructions about the cameras to a couple of other people, and Delrin crossed the room to Dorian and offered him a hand up.

 

“Hi,” he said, in a pleasant, clear voice. “Cassian, right? Nice to meet you.”

 

“Likewise,” Dorian said, and they shook hands, the thought flitting into Dorian’s mind that this would be probably the shortest elapsed time he’d ever experienced between meeting a man and going down on him.

 

“First time, eh?” Delrin said, his tone kind. “Nervous?”

 

Dorian shrugged. “A little, I suppose,” he admitted. “I’ll shake it off when we get going.”

 

“Imagine somebody you really fancy is watching. That’s what I always do.”

 

Dorian gave a light laugh, not really sure if he was serious or not. The idea of picturing Bull behind the row of camera equipment was tempting though.

 

“All right, we’re ready to go. Clear out,” Carver called, and all but three of the crew trickled out of the studio. One of the remaining men relieved Dorian and Delrin of their bathrobes, and peeled up the tape cross. Dorian, surprised now at his own lack of nerves, settled himself on his knees, while Delrin gave himself a few squeezes and strokes to get his cock fully hard.

 

One of the crew gave a countdown from three, and the lights on all three cameras snapped on.

 

Delrin smelled nice, and his cock was terribly attractive; shapely and long with a nice, neat foreskin. Dorian took a deep breath, then raised his head to give Delrin his best ‘you are going to remember this for the rest of your fucking life’ smile, and lifted his hands to lightly touch and lift the shaft with his fingertips. Then he quickly darted forwards and ran his tongue wetly up the underside of Delrin’s cock, slowly, lazily, all the way up to the tip, where he finished with a flick of his tongue against the little slit. Delrin gave a soft grunt.

 

Dorian glanced up at his face from under his lashes, then pressed his lips to the tip and let them part around it as he pushed gently forward. He teased the folds of foreskin with lips and tongue, dragged back and forth gently across the head, lapped luxuriantly at the glans, all the time making soft, throaty sounds of enjoyment. 

 

When he finally decided he’d teased enough, he pulled back slightly, ran his tongue around his lips, then opened his mouth wide and sank forwards, sliding Delrin’s cock into his mouth, his throat, slowly, slowly, until his nose was pressed into the firm flesh of Delrin’s abdomen. He worked his throat a little, let out a purr of noise that he knew felt as good as it sounded, and drew back. Slowly, slowly, until his lips met in a coy kiss at the tip.

 

And back down.

Looking up with a soft gaze as he drew back.

Back down.

He played and pleasured, intent and serious in one moment, teasing and wicked in the next. He gasped and moaned and sucked and lapped, tantalised with the tip of his tongue and attacked with his lips. An Andrastrian to his core, he knew all the same that he’d never worship anywhere else like he did in moments like this.

 

He was barely aware of the cameras, of the other people in the room, the heat of the lights, any of it. One camera was moving around them, sometimes peering down at him from the vicinity of Delrin’s shoulder, but he ignored it. He kept his attention on his mouth and Delrin’s quiet sounds, and the movement of his hands as they caressed and skimmed and cupped and stroked, cock and thighs and testes and hips.

 

Finally, Delrin gave a harsh gasp, the loudest sound he’d made thus far, and Dorian knew this was nearly it. 

 

‘Make sure we can see it’, he’d been told. He pulled off with a deliberately loud slurp and cupped the curve of his tongue beneath the head, mouth wide, tugging tenderly at the shaft with one hand. Moments later a prodigious amount of semen squirted across his tongue as he let out a near orgasmic cry, and he’d gotten the angle just right so that it splattered onto his cheek as well. He just had time to quickly swallow before another pulse came his way, and another, until he was licking up the last drips like a man dying of thirst. He finished by giving Delrin a sweet little goodnight smooch to the softening tip.

 

“Cut, that’s good,” somebody said, and Dorian let go and sat back on his heels.

 

“Nice one,” Delrin said in a friendly and slightly breathless manner. “Bloody hell.” And he turned to meet the crewmember who approached him, holding out his bathrobe. Dorian got to his feet and accepted his own robe back, putting it on as neatly as he could with a very cross erection that hadn’t liked being ignored. The same crew member came back a moment later and offered him a packet of wipes, and he gratefully took one and cleaned his face up as much as he could.

 

Carver was looking at something on a laptop screen, nodding to himself. “All right,” he said after a couple of minutes. “Okay lads, you can go and get cleaned up.”

 

Everyone was just so nonchalant, Dorian wanted to scream in frustration and leap for joy at the same time. Delrin politely offered to show him the way to the bathroom where they could take a shower, and Dorian followed, glad to find that it was next to the room where he’d changed, so he could get his things first. 

 

The bathroom itself was similar to that in a gym; a row of toilet stalls on one side, basins with a large mirror above them on the other, and curtained shower cubicles lined up in a smaller room at the back It was spotlessly clean, and there were dispensers of shower gel and shampoo in the showers (nice brands, too) and little bottles of mouthwash and make-up remover on a shelf near the basins. A hand drawn poster on one wall proclaimed ‘Friends Don’t Let Friends Leave with Spunk on Them’, a sentiment which Dorian couldn’t help but appreciate.

 

Delrin turned on the shower in one cubicle and hung up his bathrobe on a hook by the door. 

 

“You know,” he said, “we sort of have a rule here. People can have sex off set, as long as they don’t do it in anyone else’s private space. Like the offices or somewhere. Well, there’s other rules, like clean up after yourself, and make sure anybody else in the room is okay with it. Stuff like that. Bull’s big on stuff like that.”

 

“Oh yes?” Dorian asked

 

“Yeah. Good policy. Having sex on command is, well, it’s not always very satisfying, I’m sure you can imagine.” 

 

He paused and ran his gaze up and down Dorian. “Me, I’m pretty damn satisfied right now, thank you very much. But you might like a hand with that, perhaps?” He gestured towards Dorian’s crotch, where his erection was still making itself known.

 

“I’d appreciate that awfully,” Dorian said graciously, slipping his bathrobe off. Delrin smiled and gestured him into the shower stall.

 

*

 

All in all, Dorian thought as he rode the bus home, it had been a very positive experience. He felt happy with his performance, the studio had been reassuringly professional and Delrin had been a delight. He’d even learned a useful charm; his makeup was still pristine.

 

Even if they never called him back, he was satisfied with the experience. And the pay, of course, Krem having caught up with him before he left to show him the money transfer on a tablet. Not an enormous amount of money, but enough to put away for emergencies, and maybe give himself a little treat or two.

 

And he felt  _ good  _ about it. People would see him, see the beauty that he had worked so hard to perfect, and the skill he’d gained, and see how much he desired men. And yet, he would be safe, behind the distance of the screen and the protection of a false name and the studio’s fastidious rules. As strange as it still seemed, he felt like he’d made the right decision.

 

He still had time in the day, so when he got home, after making and eating a quick meal, he switched his laptop on and prepared to do a little work on his dissertation. However, a new email in his inbox, flagged as urgent, caught his attention first.

 

“Dorian,

We just watched the playback of your performance; was very good. Definitely will use it in the anthology. Carver says you worked well, Delrin too. We need new talent right now. How would you like to come and talk to us about a contract?

 

Aclassi” 


 

Fuck.

 

Fuck yes he would like to talk to them about a contract. There was an attachment on the email, and he opened it to see some contract details laid out there. It was basically a stipend paid monthly, not huge, but with a list of guaranteed fees to be paid on top of it for different kinds of work; photo shoots, small roles, principle roles, lead roles, and so on. Just to keep him on the books officially, he supposed. He could turn down work, but if he went more than two months without working while being offered jobs, the contract would be up for reconsideration.

 

It seemed perfect. Even the stipend would give him a substantial amount more money in his pocket, and the fees listed were rather higher than he had been paid today.

 

He wondered if they were really desperate for new hires, or if they had seen something in him that they liked. Who was the ‘we’ in  _ ‘we  _ just watched’? He felt rather stupid for the flash of hope that Bull had been watching, had been impressed.

 

He dashed off a reply agreeing to meet for a discussion and offering his schedule for the next few working days.

 

He was dazed and excited all through cleaning up after dinner, through getting ready for bed. Dazed and excited, and feeling like he was missing something.

 

It was only as he was drifting off to sleep that he realised that he had yet to figure out how the university would react to this.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rocky made the poster in the bathroom. There was an 'incident'.  
> And please let me reiterate; I know absolutely nothing about the porn industry, and I don't really watch porn. There has been no research. This is complete dreamland. Have fun!


	4. Adminisrative Challenges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian's worlds collide, very gently.

After some consideration, Dorian decided that he would talk to his PHD mentor  _ after _ he had made sure things were okay with the administration. No need to upset her (and she  _ would  _ be upset) until he knew if his new part time job would actually be considered acceptable by the powers that be. On arriving at the admin offices, he asked to speak to somebody who could advise him on a matter of his work outside his relationship with the university, and was surprised to be shown shortly afterwards to the rather plush offices of Miss Josephine Montilyet, the principal administrator. 

He’d met her before only briefly, yet knew that she was highly thought of. It was said that when she had taken the post, the world of politics had lost a masterful diplomat. It was also said that the post  _ required  _ a masterful diplomat, and that she actually found it more exciting than her work as the state of Skyhold’s Antivan Ambassador. Hard to believe, but Dorian wasn’t going to question it.

He had an inkling that he had been sent to see her specifically due to his status. He was in the country legally now, but his initial acceptance into the PHD programme had seen some resistance, which she had apparently had a hand in quashing.

He sat down opposite her at her large desk, took a moment to appreciate her exquisite taste in clothing (it wasn’t everyone who could wear yellow that well), and placed his contract on the desk in front of her.

“I’ve been offered a contract for regular work with a local business,” he began, “but due to the nature of said business, I wanted to make sure that the university would approve.”

“Oh?” Miss Montilyet asked, eying the contract. To Dorian’s surprise, when her eyes reached the company logo at the top of the front page, her eyebrows went up and her cheeks flushed. He hadn’t actually expected her to have heard of them.

“Um…” she said, clearly trying to come up with something polite.

“It’s a pornographic film studio,” Dorian said quickly. “I’ve done some work for them informally, and have now been offered a formal contract. I’m aware of the potential effects on my career, and am prepared to deal with them should they arise. But I need to know if there would be any barrier to this work in the official policies of the University.”

“I see,” Miss Montilyet said, peeling her eyes away from the contract. “And you would be working… as a performer?”

“Yes. Under a false name.”

“I see,” she said again. She drummed her fingers lightly against her desk, bit at her inner lip. Dorian began to feel nervous. “Please bear with me while I check one small thing,” she said after a moment, and lifted her ever-present tablet onto its stand and began searching for something.

Dorian waited, suddenly worried as hell.

After some minutes, Miss Montilyet looked up at him and smiled.

“It’s as I thought,” she said. “There’s nothing in the policies or code of conduct about what sort of jobs you may do, as long as they don’t reflect poorly on the university itself. As this is employment under a legal contract, you are using a fake name, and it’s with a well-established company, I don’t see a problem. I’m happy to clear the matter, as long as you can assure me that you won’t let your new employment upset your work for the university.”

What relief! “You have my word on that,” Dorian assured her. “I’ve no intention of becoming a campus joke, or a harassment liability.”

“Good!” Miss Montilyet said brightly, and began typing something rapidly on her PC. “You know, there is actually precedent for this? That’s how I was able to confirm things so quickly.”

“Really?”

“Yes. According to the policy records, when he was studying for his Masters, Professor de Serault worked as a dancer in… oh, I probably shouldn’t say.”

Dorian’s ears pricked. Stuffy, dragon obsessed, perpetually distracted Frederic de Serault had been an erotic dancer? He could barely believe it!

“May I have a look at your contract?” Miss Montilyet asked, and he nodded and pushed it across the desk towards her. She read rapidly, nodding her head slightly, occasionally making little ‘mm-hm’s of approval.

“Tell them to firm up the language regarding the payment of fees for third party photography and filming sessions. I don’t think it’s deliberate, but there is a tiny little loophole there,” she said, holding the tips of her right finger and thumb half an inch apart to show how small it was.

“Thank you very much,” Dorian replied, having not noticed it.

She perused a little further. “It’s nice that they give you free access to all the website content,” she said, and sounded a little wistful.

Dorian thanked her, took his contract and left the office, making sure to compliment her on her dress as he went.

*

Wynne, as he had expected, was upset.

“Surely a loan or something?” she said pleadingly, worrying a uniball pen in her hands.

“It’s not that I’m desperate for money,” Dorian assured her. “I’m reasonably stable financially, I could just do with a little more leeway. I’m quite pleased with myself, actually, having come from luxury. I think I made the transition to frugality remarkably well.”

The half humorous remark did not hit its target. 

“But what are they going to make you  _ do _ ?” the professor cried.

“They shan’t make me do anything I don’t want to, look here,” Dorian said, leaning across her desk with the contract. “They have to tell me up front what would be required of me for any project, and I’d have every right to ask for anything I wasn’t comfortable with to be changed, or turn it down completely. I won’t have to do anything that I don’t feel right with.”

Wynne put down the pen, frowned at the ink stain it had left on her thumb, and picked up the stapler to fiddle with.

“There are lots of jobs in restaurants and things, surely?”

“Yes, but their hours are often difficult to manage with my hours here, and I’m not well suited to customer service. You know me; too outspoken.”

Such jobs didn’t pay anywhere near as well either, though he wasn’t going to bring that up.

“Perhaps at a library, then. Or a book shop! You’d love that!”

“Wynne, my dear…” Dorian sighed and reached across the desk to take the stapler away from her and hold her hand. “I think you overestimate my employability. I’m Tevinter, very obviously so and with no interest in concealing the fact. I’m gay and a mage on the same terms. I’m a refugee, an ex-political brat, my field of magic scares the tar out of people, and I can’t let an argument lie. Outside of academia, I don’t have a great many employment options. But this feels like a good fit.”

She looked at his hand holding hers and gave a deep sigh. “Are you sure?”

“I wasn’t until I went to the interview, but I’ve met some of the directors and managers of the company, and they seem very good. Efficient and pleasant to work with, and really invested in people’s wellbeing.” He considered showing Wynne the page on the website with all the legal and ethical information, but then decided no; looking at even the most innocuous page on a porn site would probably make her implode.

“I do worry about you, you know?” she offered.

“I know. You’ve been very good to me.” 

It was true. She’d been all geared up to hate him at first, Dorian had been able to tell. But if it was his charm, or her parental instincts, or sympathy for the sad story of his flight from Tevinter, or whatever else, they had warmed to each other quickly, and he was damned glad to have her on his side.

“You’ll stop working for them if anything bad happens?”

“Of course. I would never stand for any abuses of power.”

“You promise me?”

“I promise.

“... Do you promise not to set anything on fire?”

“Yes. I never do that.”

Wynne gave a little laugh, and Dorian knew his case was won. With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, the pulled the university dual-employment form across the desk, uncapped a fresh uniball, and signed her name.

“Thank you,” Dorian said, picking up the form.

“Don’t be a little shit, will you now,” Wynne replied, reaching up to pinch his chin.

*

Dorian sent the signed contract, along with a letter requesting written confirmation on the terms for third party fees, from the mailbox at the university library, then went inside to get on with his lecture prep, feeling ridiculously accomplished.

*

Dorian had had some romantic idea that, having signed up, his life would suddenly become an exciting whirlwind of glamourous opportunities and erotic discoveries. However, all that happened was that he got a confirmation of contract in the mail two days later, along with a better worded third party fees section and a letter telling him to go to a doctor’s office in the city centre for a sexual health exam.

That unpleasantness out of the way (along with the discovery from the very chatty doctor that Stitches was an ex-trauma surgeon, which made for quite the unusual career path), Dorian was forced to simply wait.

The next thing he heard from Charge! was an email notifying him that his video had been released. Dorian had only just arrived home from work when the email showed up in his inbox, and he immediately dropped everything in order to watch.

He logged into the site with the code that he’d been given after he signed the contract, along with a message that he could download whatever he wanted for free, which… there was a slight temptation to spend the evening reacquainting himself with some old favourites. But the curiosity over his own film overrode it. He lay on his stomach on the sofa, laptop in front of him, and clicked the link for the new video with tooth-clenching excitement.

The anthology had been released with the name ‘Worshipful Masses’, which was actually quite tasteful as far as Charge! videos went. Most of their titles were either puns or just an outright description of what the video was about. Two of Dorian’s old favourites were called ‘Wicked Eyes and Wicked Parts’ and ‘Hot Cranky Elf Covered in Spunk’, which he felt illustrated the dichotomy nicely.

The video loaded and the title card came up, accompanied by music, smooth melodies with a strong beat, which was one of the many oft-praised features of videos from Charge! A message appeared confirming that everyone featured in the video was above the age of consent and had agreed to be filmed for distribution, and then it launched straight in to the porn.

The first scene showed a very beefy dwarvish man laboriously pulling open a pretty elf’s laced-up leather trousers using only his teeth. Which was rather lovely to watch (and Dorian  _ liked  _ those trousers) but he was impatient to see himself.

He dragged the slider forwards a bit, and spent a minute watching the next scene (a human man feeding his cock to a big, mildly distressed looking qunari whose hands were tied behind his back) before dragging forwards again, and…

There he was.

Cassian Corso, in all his considerable glory.

Dorian felt oddly daunted for a moment, and had to pause the video and just stare at his own face. There he was, on film. On film enjoying sex with another man.

He wasn’t embarrassed. Or ashamed. But maybe he was feeling the residue of those things, from back in Tevinter, when he had had to hide so much. But this wasn’t hiding, this was the exact opposite. He felt dazed and, through the fuzz, realised that at any moment that feeling would likely turn into elation.

He set the video playing again.

There was a man very much enjoying sucking cock.

Dorian smiled.

Dorian smiled wider.

Dorian developed a whole new appreciation for his own skill, and also for the exceptional tone of Delrin’s thigh muscles.

And also for Carver’s camera work.

_ Maker  _ it was good!

He felt so glad, so very very glad that he’d done this! The bright pang of pride and satisfaction wasn’t unlike the feeling he’d experienced when seeing an article he’d written printed in an academic journal for the first time.

He watched Delrin come on his face and laughed with delight.

Pausing the video, Dorian exited full screen and looked at the rest of the video’s page. Charge! allowed carefully moderated comments on their films, and there were already several dozen lined up underneath the video player. The very first one, right at the top, read;

_ Whose cassian corso? Thats a new guy right? Is he the one with the mustoche? Fucking hot! _

Followed by several thumbs up emojis. Dorian very much appreciated the sentiment, if not the spelling and grammar. He charitably assumed that the author had been typing one handed.

Reading down through the list of comments, his spirits rose ever higher; a lot of them mentioned him, apparently the only performer in the collection who was completely new to the studio. All were complimentary. Some were obscene. Many demanded to see more of him.

Dorian got to his feet and stood looking at himself in his mirror, beaming at his reflection.

He was a porn star!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, I *am* trying to cram in as many canon references as I can, thank you for noticing. SoManyJacks is helping me a lot with fitting canon characters into this weird verse, though suggestions are welcome if you feel particularly inspired.
> 
> Also, I nearly killed him with the 'Hot Cranky Elf' joke. Sorry for the near death experience Jack!
> 
> As is feedback, as ever.


	5. Picture Perfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The following week, Dorian found a magazine in his mailbox in the foyer and, it having been a very hard day at work, stared at it in confusion for a minute before registering the title. He rushed upstairs to tear off the plastic wrapper, and nearly laughed out loud at the little teaser on the contents page; ‘Trim that waist! Could the man (or men) in your life be captivating in corsetry? Sultry Tevinter beauty Cassian shows how it’s done!’

For the next week or so, things were quiet on the porn front. Which was just as well, as end of semester exam dates had just been announced at the university, and suddenly everyone who’d been slacking off for the last two months urgently needed to speak to their professors. Wynne and Dorian, having worked together for nearly eighteen months at this point, had the matter down to a fine art; the ones who needed and would make use of genuine help, or even just a bit of gingering up, got an appointment with Wynne, who would talk them through the course and the particular things they needed to work on. Everyone else - the incurable slackers, the self entitled coasters, the ones taking the Thaumaturgy 101 class for the credits and complaining because it wasn’t as easy as they’d expected - got sent to Dorian. He was far less sympathetic to sob stories than Wynne, and thus was able to send them on their way with all due speed, and with no misconceptions of how much support they would get from the faculty if they continued to not pull their weight.

 

Throughout the week, Wynne would occasionally give Dorian a worried look and ask quietly about his new part time job, before immediately turning vibrantly red in the face. In spite of his gift for words, Dorian was having a hard time coming up with ways to soothe her. In the end, he predicted, she would simply note that he was continuing to excel at his academic work, and also continuing to be neither physically harmed, nor traumatised, nor addicted to anything unsavoury, and come to accept the matter.

 

During this time he also had several phone conversations with Krem. It seemed that he hadn’t imagined the astonishingly positive response to his first appearance; the studio board had discussed him in their most recent monthly meeting, and they had agreed to schedule him in more films as soon as possible, and also to give him a ‘launch’.

 

“We usually wait until somebody has at least a couple more films under their belt,” Krem had explained on Friday, during a mildly awkward phone conversation that Dorian had picked up while riding the bus home. “But the board seems to think you're a safe bet. We’ll do a photoshoot for you and you can be top billing on the main page of the website for a few days. Next time we get a substantial role in a film set up for you, we’ll put the photos up and boom, you’re launched. We do it for a lot of our people, gives the career a good place to start from.”

 

“Sounds wonderful,” Dorian said. “Any idea when I might hear about my next role?” This comment attracted the nosy attention of the woman in the seat across the aisle from him, but Dorian ignored her.

 

“We’ve a few thoughts, yeah. Actually, we got an offer today from a magazine we work with from time to time. They saw you and want you to do a feature photo shoot for them. It’s an Orlesian women’s magazine, pretty specialist. It’ll pay well. You fancy it?”

 

Dorian pursed his lips. Orlesians could get rather odd with their tastes in erotica, and the few of their women’s magazines he’d ever seen that showed gay men were in the ‘precious, nasty gay babies’ vein, which he despised. Though it wouldn’t be ideal to turn down the first bit of work he was offered under his new contract…

 

“I have the details here if you want,” Krem offered, and Dorian heard papers being shuffled. “Here we go. The shoot is to showcase a corset maker that’s branched out to men’s lingerie, they’ll pay eight hundred sovereigns-”

 

Dorian nearly swallowed his tongue.

 

“-and the magazine is called ‘The Randy Dowager Quarterly’. Don’t suppose you’ve heard of it?”

 

Dorian let out a laugh. The first pornography he’d ever owned had been a copy of RDQ, a five years out-of-date summer issue featuring lots of pictures of ripped men in tiny bathing suits, oiling themselves up on a beach. He’d employed all of his hormonal, 13-year-old wits in crafting the perfect hiding place for it in his fusty circle dorm.

 

“I rather like the sound of that,” he told Krem. “It’s been far too long since I wore a corset.”

 

The woman across the aisle was staring raptly now, clearly intrigued.

 

“We’ll get a date firmed up, and we’ll talk over potential films when we get a gap in the meeting schedule. I’ll let you know when,” Krem said, and hung up without saying goodbye, as seemed to be his way. 

 

Dorian grinned all the way home, intriguing his nosy aisle neighbour all the more.

 

*

 

The following Tuesday, Dorian acquired Wynne’s permission to leave a little early, the bulk of his work being finished to his usual high standards, and boarded the bus to a photography studio in the north of the city. It was a large place in a gentrified factory building, and had probably been an incredibly desirable and fashionable place of business about ten years previously. Dorian walked into the reception area to be greeted by Rocky and a simpering Orlesian woman who introduced herself as Couteau. He was then introduced in turn to a terribly prim man who, without a word to him, whisked him off to one of the studios, whisked him further into a curtained changing area, and began trying to whisk him out of his clothes. It took some insistence, enforced by a few choice words from Rocky, to induce him to allow Dorian to undress himself.

 

This little trial overcome, Dorian undressed, put on one of the ever-present bathrobes, and was led out into the studio proper, where he got his first look at the set.

 

It was staggering how well they’d managed to create the feel of excessive decadence and gleeful tackiness in that little area of a rough hewn building. The walls had been draped with deep red curtain fabric, in front of which a huge four poster bed was positioned and well lit. The sumptuous covers were brocades and velvets, the sheets gleamingly white, the carpet on the floor thick enough to sink into. There were little tables on either side of the bed strewn with expensive looking curios, and the footboard of the bed was decorated with what, on camera, would look very convincingly like a Diadem Era landscape oil painting. It was as if the very concept of tasteless affluence had thrown up here.

 

One could almost believe one were in Val Royeaux.

 

There was some discussion between Couteau, the prim corset maker, Couteau's two colleagues (who, embarrassingly, had turned up in more or less the same outfit as her), Rocky, and Dorian himself, and a rough schedule was put together of which of the many corsets Dorian would model, and how much of his jewellery he should wear.

 

Thus it was that, having been laced snugly into an exquisite ivory satin full corset, trimmed with burgundy lace, and having been relieved of all jewellery but his nipple rings, Dorian was admiring himself in a mirror and listening to an argument about lighting stands when the door to the studio opened and Bull walked in. He was wearing a tight t-shirt, in spite of it being chilly outside, and Dorian could only imagine that being worn by such a body was sort sort of garment equivalent of heaven; the t-shirt was surely delighted.

 

“Hey,” he said casually to the room at large and, offering polite yet abbreviated greetings to  the three Orlesian women bearing down on him, crossed the room to where Dorian stood and gave him a good once over. 

 

“Damn, I knew you were just right for this when Krem showed me the request. You look great.”

 

Dorian had never in his life been more uncomfortable in his awareness of the fact that everyone around him could see his genitals.

 

“Thank you,” he said evenly. “I rather hope that this pays off for them, the corsets are beautifully made.”

 

Bull nodded. “Did Krem say about launching you? We got a great photographer who already has some ideas, and a couple of movies that have good parts for you. One’s a short piece, it’d just be you and maybe one of our other regulars, a couple of sex scenes. Other’s a longer, ensemble piece about a party, one sex scene for you, and a couple of set up scenes.”

 

“Those sound good,” Dorian replied. 

 

“And, uh, do you know much about VR?”

 

“...VR?”

 

“Yeah, virtual reality. All those videos you see online of people with the headset on, knocking over furniture fighting aliens and shit? We were looking into maybe trying-”

 

“Hey chief,” Rocky greeted him brightly, cutting him off. “What’re you doing here?”

 

Bull greeted him and explained that he’d been in the building talking to a set maker and, while they were chatting, the photographer’s assistant drew Dorian away and had him stand in the middle of the rug while they figured out the lighting.

 

Bull stayed for the whole shoot, sometimes chatting with Rocky, or flirting lightly with the Orlesians, or messing with his phone. Every time Dorian’s corsetry was changed, Bull would offer him a compliment as he exited the changing area. He talked to the photographer about poses, and offered intelligent suggestions on composition. He charmed the prim corset maker into conversation, and calmed Couteau when she worked herself into a frenzy.

 

By the end of it, Dorian not only had even more of a crush on him than previously, he also felt a strong sense of pride. This admirable man was his employer, and had picked him out personally. 

 

When the shoot was finally over, he, Bull and Rocky walked out together, and he listened happily as they recounted funny stories about shoots long past for him. Bull saw him onto the bus, and if Rocky hadn’t been there, Dorian would have had to seriously fight the urge to ask him for a goodnight kiss.

 

*

 

The following week, Dorian found a magazine in his mailbox in the foyer and, it having been a very hard day at work, stared at it in confusion for a minute before registering the title. He rushed upstairs to tear off the plastic wrapper, and nearly laughed out loud at the little teaser on the contents page; ‘ _ Trim that waist! Could the man (or men) in your life be captivating in corsetry? Sultry Tevinter beauty Cassian shows how it’s done! _ ’ This indulgent statement was accompanied by a small circle sampled from one of the photographs, showing only the upper edge of one of the more ornate corsets, with Dorian’s pecs and pierced nipples shown off to good affect above it. 

 

He was going to have to show this to Sera, she’d laugh for months.

 

He flipped to the article and, after some consideration, decided he was pleased. The largest photograph on the three pages showed him dressed in a brutally restrictive charcoal grey corset patterned with gold embroidery, reclining on the bed with the sheets carefully rumpled underneath him, a sultry come-hither look directed at the viewer through the camera, and his right hand cupped over but not fully concealing his erect cock. He looked fantastic, he was proud to say.

 

There were also pictures of:                                                                                                    

him kneeling on the bed in a very ornate gold damask number, trimmed in delicate ruffles of black silk ribbon and looking hungrily at the viewer over his shoulder;                                  

him posed in a simple catwalk style stance, a rather stark matte black waist trainer pulling his middle in harshly;                              

him seated on the rug, one leg tucked underneath him, the other stretched out balletically, arms raised elegantly skywards, showing off the delicate floral embroidery on an otherwise rather mainstream corset.

 

They were wonderful photographs, he thought, mind straying to that lovely section of the Charge! website with the beautiful erotic art pictures. It wasn’t really porn or, at least, it wasn’t  _ just _ porn.

 

They hadn’t used his favourite one, in which he’d been lying on the rug pretending to be trying to pull already tight laces even tighter, but they had used one that he felt would hold a special place in his heart for some years to come. It was one in which he was standing at the foot of the bed, clinging to the bed post while his corset was laced, a pose he himself had seen so often in articles on body shaping clothing (though usually featuring a pallid looking woman being attended by a cronish maid). He’d been instructed to adopt an expression of pained ecstasy while the photographer’s assistant pulled on the laces firmly. The shot had been tricky, just not quite right, until Bull had offered to take the part of the lace puller, suggesting that somebody who was actually strong enough to get the corset tighter would give the whole thing a better look. Thus, the photograph had Dorian looking almost agonisingly aroused, and was cropped to offer just the slightest view of large, grey-complexioned hands. 

 

Dorian hadn’t had to act much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, this IS just my brain spilling out onto the page, thanks for noticing!  
> Managed not to cause Jack any near death experiences this week, which is good. Must keep that habit :D  
> Hope you enjoyed it, if you did please give me a heads up!
> 
> **UPDATE**  
> This chapter now has [art](http://dancinggrimm.tumblr.com/post/174377859987/beckily-from-the-amazing-story-by-dancinggrimm)!!! Created by the fab Beckily. Thank you sweet pea!!


	6. A Meeting of Minds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian attends easily the least boring meeting he's ever been to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The previous chapter now has some [art](http://dancinggrimm.tumblr.com/post/174377859987/beckily-from-the-amazing-story-by-dancinggrimm) , created by the fab Beckily!!!

“Plenty on over the next few months,” Krem said, settling into his chair at the head of the table. He strew several card folders with intriguing titles penned on their covers onto the surface and looked up into a gathering of eager faces. This was the first time Dorian had been in the conference room since his audition, but unlike last time it was almost full. Bull was there, as well as Krem, Stitches and Skinner, and the rest of the large table was surrounded by a broad variety of men and women, some of whom Dorian recognised easily. 

 

To his left sat a good looking dark haired human man a little older than himself, who practically reeked of charisma. After a moment’s consideration, Dorian recognised him as the man who had been face fucking a big qunari chap in the Worshipful Masses anthology (which he had watched in its entirety once he’d gotten over the shock of actually being in it). The qunari, incidentally, sat on the other side of the table, looking nervous.

 

To Dorian’s right sat an elvish woman of around thirty five, with impressively well maintained hair, nails and eyebrows, and the most enormous breasts Dorian had ever seen. He vaguely recognised her from scrolling through the pages of the Charge! Website but, having little interest in breasts no matter the size, he had never watched any of her films. They had to be fake; even if she was a bit on the curvy side for an elf, they were still completely out of proportion. It was astonishing that she had such good posture.

 

Directly opposite him were the dwarvish domme lady who had starred in so many ‘Double Dom’ films with Bull, as fascinatingly ugly and sweetly smiling in real life as she had looked on her film covers, and next to her a model handsome human with gleaming blonde hair who chatted affably with anyone who happened to make eye contact with him. Dorian had offered him a smile of greeting when he sat down and had ending up having a brief but enjoyable chat about ear piercings.

 

At the head of the table, to either side of Krem, sat Skinner, glaring, and Bull, sipping from a mug of what looked like hot chocolate. Stitches was at the other end of the table, scrolling through his phone and looking for all the world like he didn’t even know a meeting was going on around him.

 

The rest of the table was packed, with folding chairs having been brought in. Dorian had been told that such meetings took place fairly regularly, and that only people who were being considered for larger places in projects were specifically invited, but that others were welcome. He wondered who besides him was waiting for their first big role, and who was there for the gossip.

 

Krem had finally got his folders into some sort of order and cleared his throat loudly, bringing the group to order.

 

“We’ve got a Ride the Bull coming up; Tessa, I think this’ll be a good one for you. Swimming coach, sex in a changing cubicle.”

 

“Sounds good,” replied a slight, dark haired human woman sitting near Stitches’ end of the table. Krem slid a folder down the table to her, and Bull gave her a little salute as she picked it up, making her giggle.

 

Half a dozen other folders were handed out, some being split between two or more people, others handed to one person, or passed around with instructions to ‘think about it’. It was all done with the same air of casual pragmatism that Krem seemed to imbue into everything, each film or photo shoot summed up in a frankly worded brief of no more than two sentences, if that.

 

Finally, he heard his own name. 

 

“Cassian, or rather Dorian, say hello to everyone,” Krem said, and Dorian offered a smile and a quiet greeting to the assembled company, many of whom gave friendly waves or craned their necks to get a good look at him.

 

“We’re launching Dorian in the next couple of weeks, so keep your eyes peeled for that,” Krem continued. “Garrett, how’d you like to do a short plot piece with Dorian? ‘Dumped man gets visited by a friend who wants to cheer him up with sex.’ One scene with just the two of you, we’ll maybe have somebody else come in for the second scene, make it a threesome.”

 

He closed the folder and looked around the table thoughtfully. Dorian glanced to his left and found the charismatic man sitting next to him was offering his hand.

 

“Garrett,” he said. 

 

Dorian shook his offered hand. “Dorian,” he replied. “Or am I supposed to use my screen name here? I wasn’t sure.”

 

“Well, in that case, call me Kelvin Thrust,” Garrett said.

 

Dorian, momentarily taken aback, was saved from replying by Bull instructing him to lean over the table. He did so, and turned to see a pale complexioned human man with longish blonde hair also leaning out from the other side of the table. It seemed Bull wanted to see their faces side by side, or as close as he could get.

 

“There we go,” Bull said, waving in their direction. “Good contrast.”

 

“Okay, okay,” Krem replied, typing something up on his laptop. “Garrett, Dorian and Anders, here you go.” He pulled three documents out of a folder and flung them down the table, somehow getting one more or less in front of each of them. The blond man, Anders, turned and gave Dorian a bright grin, then set about studying his document with great care.

 

Dorian looked at his own. There was a shooting schedule, left fairly flexible at this point, and a few pages of script, most of which was stage direction and instructions to ad lib for various things; flirtation, teasing and the like. Krem had scribbled ‘Cassian’ next to the name ‘Mateo’, who was the character trying to cheer up his recently dumped friend. Garrett (Kelvin) would be playing Clark, the dumpee, and Anders (... just Anders, apparently) was to be the other friend that ‘Mateo’ called in as back up in case Clark needed more jollity. It was nice, simple, a solid scenario that any viewer could surely get on board with. 

 

His first proper porn role. He was so  _ excited _ !

 

*

 

Dorian was distracted from the rest of the meeting by looking at his new script, and it wasn’t long before Krem wound things up.

 

“We’ll have a new script from VT coming in soon, he says,” a comment which Dorian couldn’t make head nor tail out of, though everyone else seemed happy to hear it. “We’ll set the date for the next meeting after we’ve heard about that. Dorian, stick around for a while and we’ll talk photoshoots.”

 

He got up from the table, and everyone else followed suit. Dorian rose, then lingered while the others filed out of the room, several breaking away into pairs or small groups to chat amiably. Dorian felt a twinge of that ‘new boy at the Circle’ feeling, like he ought to be trying to make friends.

 

After a few minutes of quiet talk with Stitches (who had, in fact, been taking minutes of the meeting), Bull and Krem turned their attention to Dorian. 

 

“Great work so far, big guy,” Bull said warmly, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “I don’t know if you’re aware of how big the reaction to you has been, but let’s just say we’ve identified a demand.”

 

“Really? How flattering.”

 

“Not many ‘Vints in the industry, at least not in the mainstream,” Krem said, fiddling with his laptop. “Plus you’ve got an unusual look.”

 

“And you’re fancy,” Bull added. “It seems a lot of people are really hot for a haughty guy with and good posture. Who knew?”

 

Dorian beamed. “So there ought to be plenty of work for me in the near future?”

 

“Sure. Krem’s already got a few projects in the works with your name on the possible list. We narrow those lists down as we get more detail on each project, so we’ll let you know about them as they get nearer. But don’t worry; you won’t be kicking your heels, waiting for something to do.”

 

“This launch then,” Krem said slightly too loudly, dragging them back on track with no regard for subtlety. “There’s a photographer I want to try, and I think she’d suit you.”

 

“That the one Leliana recommended?” Bull asked.

 

“Yeah, Charter. She’s not done much x-rated work before, but she apparently has brilliant observational skills. Anyway, we’ll have you do a photo shoot with her. We’ve been throwing ideas around at management meetings, but the most popular seems to be a sort of Ancient Age Tevinter thing, togas and charm jewellery and such. Sound okay?”

 

“Certainly. It sounds quite fun, actually.”

 

“Okay. I’ll schedule it for the week before we shoot the next film,” Krem said with a gesture at the folder Dorian held. “We can release both at the same time. Some of the images will be front and centre of the site’s main page for about a week, with a link to a page we’ll set up for you. You’ve seen the ones we’ve done for other performers, yeah?”

 

Dorian nodded. They all had photographs of each performer, plus links to all of their films. Simple, and very difficult to make oneself navigate away from if you found somebody you really liked the look of. 

 

“Skinner’s coming up with text for your page, but you’ll get final say on what actually goes up there. No personal details, and we’ll only refer to you by your screen name. Any questions?”

 

“No, thank you, that’s all good to know,” Dorian replied, wondering uncomfortably what Skinner could possibly find to write about him.

 

Krem began picking up and sorting all the stuff he’d left on the desk into his messenger bag, while Bull patted Dorian’s shoulder again, then left the room. Dorian resisted the urge to follow on his heels like a desperate debutant, and thus was still in the room when Krem cleared his throat meaningfully.

 

“You’re one of Bull’s fans then?” Krem said neutrally.

 

“I suppose so. One of many, I’m sure.”

 

Krem quirked an eyebrow but otherwise kept his face completely impassive. “He told me how he met you. I don’t know that he’s ever recruited anybody by chasing them into a public shower before…”

 

The sentence hung uncomfortably. Dorian squared up and crossed his arms.

 

“What exactly are you getting at?” he demanded. “Do you think I’ve done something untoward?”

 

Krem shook his head. “I think you aren’t usually the type we hire. I’d decided not to pursue you after your audition, but Bull made me turn it over to a vote and you squeaked through.”

 

“When you say  _ ‘type’ _ ,” Dorian replied, putting as much acid into the word as only a man brought up in part by the Thalrassians could hope to, “What exactly is it that you mean? Alti, I suppose?”

 

“No,” Krem said with an arch look that suggested Dorian had confirmed a suspicion. “If you really must know, I mean a graduate student.”

 

Dorian raised his eyebrows. First time he’d encountered prejudice on that front.

 

“Why on earth should you object to that?” he demanded.

 

Krem dropped his stuff on the table and squared his shoulders. “Look, we’ve been through it before. You show up, you make a couple of films, you bugger off and before we know it there’s a damning article treating us like fucking freaks in the  _ Thedas Journal of Sociology _ , or  _ Psychology Today _ , or  _ Culture! _ or some other shit, and everybody’s got really clumsy stand in names, along with a dozen crappy cell phone photos that nobody consented to. You get paid and get a nice salacious article on your CV to kickstart your academic career, while we get a bunch of fucking skim reading idiots protesting about the existence of sex in our parking lot for three months, and lose out on the money we invested in your porn career. It’s happened too damn often and if you think I’m going to let my people go through that frustration and disappointment again, I-”

 

“I’m going to stop you there,” Dorian interrupted, as calmly as he could. Krem glared at him, but let him speak. “The little application form I filled in didn’t have a space for me to add details about my present occupation, and I now regret not writing it on the back.”

 

“What?”

 

“You never actually asked me what my field of study was. Would you like to know?”

 

Krem cocked his head, still clearly deeply suspicious.

 

“I’m studying applied thaumaturgy, specialising in necromancy,” Dorian told him. “I do write articles, but mainly about things like comparing effects of different types of magical exposure on living and dead tissue, and the using time magic theory to examine physical and spiritual entropy. I don’t think I could really pull the activities of a porn studio into that, do you?”

 

“...oh,” Krem said, the wind gone from his sails.

 

“How often has that happened, exactly? With the psychologists and such?”

 

Krem shrugged. “Three or four times? It really got under Bull’s skin.”

 

It occured to Dorian that Krem was very protective of Bull, and he decided to think of it as sweet. He sighed, watching as Krem began gathering all his stuff up from the table.

 

“Look,” Dorian said. “I don’t actually want to create problems for the studio. I’d prefer this get linked to my academic life as little as possible. And if you have a problem with me admiring Bull, then I think you’re going to have a long queue of other people in that position to deal with before you even reach me.”

 

Krem nodded, the anger gone from him now, replaced with a vaguely annoyed tiredness. “I don’t actually stand guard over Bull so people don’t get into his pants, you know,” he muttered. “It bothered me that he’s never gone- You know what? Never mind.” He straightened and looked Dorian dead in the eye. “Thank you for explaining about your academic studies, I shall worry less,” he said calmly, and left the room.

 

What had he been about to say, Dorian wondered. Bull had never gone… where? What could it have to do with Dorian?

 

He stepped out of the meeting room door and immediately found himself in a small clutch of people. Cadash, the cheery dwarf, the very handsome human man he’d chatted with about earrings, and the large busted elf woman were gathered around the qunari man.

 

“It’s okay though sweetheart,” Cadash was saying to the qunari. “You’ve just got to figure out how to work through it.”

 

“Did you speak to Bull about it?” the human man asked. “He’d probably have some suggestions.”

 

The qunari shook his head, then glanced at Dorian and, realising that he had overheard their conversation, flushed.

 

“Excuse me,” Dorian said, and began trying to move away, but a dainty hand grabbed his sleeve with imperative force.

 

“We were waiting for you to come out,” the elvish woman said happily. “I wanted to say hello properly. I’m Ina Lavellan, this is Golni Cadash, Reece Trevelyan, and Marit.” She gestured around the group as she spoke and they all smiled at him warmly, with the exception of Marit, who nodded to him awkwardly and excused himself from the group, striding off along the corridor with a heavy tread.

 

“Don’t worry about him,” Reece said quietly. “He’s dealing with some stuff. I suppose he isn’t feeling terribly sociable.”

 

“Very nice corset pictures Cassian,” Golni said brightly. “Or do you prefer to be called Dorian off set?”

 

“Either is fine, and thank you.”

 

“I particularly liked the waist trainer, though a more decorative model would have suited you better. Do you like being tied up?”

 

Dorian paused at the abrupt question, and the cheerful delivery, and was saved from puzzling out an answer that wouldn’t make him look like an asshole by Ina, who laughed and took his arm. 

 

“It’s moot anyway, Gol. He doesn’t like women. That’s right, isn’t it Dorian?”

 

“Oh, what a shame,” Golni replied. “I was hoping I’d have a chance to do something with you. I suppose I’ll have to stick with this one instead,” and with that she gave Reece a resounding slap on the behind, which made him let out a burst of laughter.

 

“The three of us are sort of old hands,” Ina explained to Dorian. “We all showed up when Bull first opened this place, and we’ve all done plenty of work here since. We like to get to know the new people a bit. Are you enjoying yourself?”

 

“I am, actually,” Dorian replied, and all of them gave him those lovely smiles again. “I didn’t really know what to expect when I first turned up, but I’m pleased with how things are going. I’m looking forward to the launch as well.”

 

“Maker, it feels like decades ago I got my launch,” Reece said with a sigh. “I feel so old thinking about it.” Both women promptly reached out and cuffed him, and he giggled.

 

“Reece is a youngster, turned up and demanded an audition on his eighteenth birthday,” Golni explained. “He likes to lord his youth over us biddies, like a shit.”

 

She gave him another smack on the behind for good measure, and he grabbed her hand. “You know I love you and your old lady haircut, Golni darling.”

 

“It’s  _ not- _ oh you little bastard!” Golni exclaimed, and Dorian found himself joining in with the lively laughter they all came out with.

 

He’d had friendship groups like this in Tevinter, all friendly ribbing and teasing, with a very real depth of affection and trust underneath it all. He’d felt reluctant to try for such relationships again in the South, not least because he had so little time and money with which to socialise. He missed it.

 

None of them seemed to be in a hurry to leave, so Dorian stayed and allowed them to gently quiz him on his life beyond the studios, his studies, and a few questions about Tevinter that he answered without giving away any more personal information that was necessary. After a little while Golni looked at her watch and gave a small groan and excused herself, quickly followed by Reece.

 

Dorian looked at Ina, who still loosely held his arm. Her figure really was extraordinary. It looked like she was the smallest margin of error away from pitching forwards uncontrollably. Of course, if that were to happen, she at least wouldn’t hit her face on the floor. She might even be bounced right back onto her feet.

 

“It’s funny how even gay men stare at them,” she commented neutrally, and Dorian immediately rushed to apologise. She just laughed again. “I’m used to it, really,” she assured him. “It’s stranger to me these days if somebody  _ doesn’t  _ look. I don’t mind.”

 

“Still, that was ungentlemanly of me,” Dorian insisted, abashed. She gave him a searching look.

 

“How do you feel about tiny cakes?” she asked.

 

“I… they’re quite nice, I suppose. Why?”

 

“Come for tea and tiny cakes with me then,” she said, dragging him down the corridor with surprising strength. “I want to get to know you.”

 

And off they went.

 

*

 

There was a large office building on the same complex as the studio which had a surprisingly pretty cafe on its ground floor, and Dorian and Ina sat at a small round table as far from the queue as they could get for afternoon tea, a meal which Dorian hadn’t partaken in since his old hag of a paternal grandmother had died.

 

Ina, he was happy to say, was far better company than Grandmother Ludmilla. Having been with the studio since its inception some seven years before, she had all the gossip and was perfectly happy to share. But the little peeps into the lives of others she offered were respectful; they were friends she was talking about after all. By the time she had decimated the plate of tiny cakes, Dorian felt like he could identify most of the regular employees of the studio by their more amusing mannerisms alone. When she paused to dab up a few crumbs with her finger, Dorian decided to ask something that had been on his mind.

 

“Why is Krem so protective of Bull?” he said. “Do you know if there’s a reason? I did wonder if Krem is simply one of those people who gets that way over friends, because I can’t really see Bull ever being in need of protection. He’s so self- possessed.”

 

Ina nodded. “Krem’s always gets a bit like that with people he’s fond of. It’s mostly a good thing, as he’s usually the one we go to for help if we have problems. I’ve had trouble with stalkers over the years, and he’s always been able to help me see them off legally. Well, either that or he’s set Bull and Skinner on them for me.”

 

“Who is actually in charge? It seems like there’s a little group that all have a say, but then Krem and Bull are both sort of the boss.”

 

“We called them ‘The Chargers’,” Ina said. “The seven joint owners. Bull started the place though, and has a bit more control. Krem is better at the day to day stuff, so he takes the reins on most things. Bull makes the big decisions and Krem deals with people and bills and, you know. That sort of thing.”

 

Dorian considered his conversation with Krem earlier. “So, the buck stops with Bull?” he asked.

 

“Yep. He comes across as a bit flippant, but he’s actually got a really good business brain. Strategic, you know? They used to be soldiers.”

 

“Who? Bull and Krem?”

 

“And the rest of the Chargers too. Maker knows how they managed to find their way from that to running a porn studio, but such is life.” She shrugged prettily and picked up her teacup. “So yes, Bull is the boss, but Krem pretty much runs the place on equal terms. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bull pull rank or anything like that. You can trust them both. They’re good lads”

 

Dorian nodded, mind whirring. That sentence that Krem had left hanging earlier. ‘ _ It bothered me that he’s never gone _ -’

 

_ “It bothered me that he’s never gone over my head” _ , perhaps?

 

He wasn’t sure what to read into that.

 

*

 

Arriving home later than he’d planned after his very pleasant tea with Ina, Dorian opened his laptop and got straight to work on writing up some data analysis for his thesis. Buried in his work, he had been going for nearly two hours when the ring of his phone startled him, and he answered the call and pressed the phone to his ear without looking at it.

 

“Hello?”

 

There was a moment of silence, a crackle on the line. And then a low, faintly hissing voice said;

 

“Hello  _ Cassian _ .”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, nothing crazy stressful is going to happen in this story! It's all going to be cool, folks!  
> And yes, those are four inquisitors. Except they aren't inquisiting anyone. Unless you take that to mean in the sense of Dorian's double entendre in his romance route, in which case everyone is inquisiting pretty much everyone else because that's what they're all in a porn studio for in the first place.  
> So.
> 
> I really hope you're all enjoying this weird ride with me, and just to reiterate, I have absolutely no idea how a porn studio is run, but I decided to go with how I thought a guy like Bull would run one and went with that. :D
> 
> Feedback, as always, is appreciated.


	7. Catching Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian has a chat with some old friends.

For an awful second, Dorian’s guts turned to ice.

 

Then a breathy giggle, almost as familiar to him as his own laugh, gave his caller away.

 

“ _ Mae _ ? What…”

 

“Oh sweetling, did I give you a scare? I’m sorry, I was only trying to be silly.”

 

Relief rushed through him, and he went so limp in his chair he almost slid out of it. “I thought...oh Maker.”

 

There were a few seconds of silence in which Dorian let himself consider - and practically heard Mae considering it too - who he might have thought it was on the phone. He really had to pay more attention to who was calling him.

 

“Well,” Mae said in a bright tone, “it seems somebody has a new job, doesn’t it. Care to discuss, my sweet?”

 

“How on earth did you find out?” Dorian asked.

 

“Oh come now, you know I’m an avid reader of RDQ, surely. Thorold and I look through it together in bed.”

 

“I really didn’t need to know-”

 

“And there we were, getting all nice and cosy, me very much looking forward to seeing this ‘sultry Tevinter beauty’, (oh sweetling, you can’t expect me to say that without getting the giggles) and we open the page and look who it is! All strapped up in pretty underthings with his winkle out! I thought poor Thorald’s face would turn inside out, he was trying so desperately not to look.”

 

Dorian sighed, trying not to let the image of poor Thorald’s face stick too securely in his mind. “I took a job with a pornographic studio here,” he said, it being best to be straightforward with Mae, who had ways of finding things out on her own if pressed. 

 

“A studio? As in films? Dorian, that’s wonderful! I was so worried about how your libido seemed to suffer after you left. Are you enjoying it? Are they treating you right? Do I need to issue threats to anyone?”

 

Dorian let out a laugh at that. “No threats needed, I assure you. They’re a very fair and forward thinking organisation, actually. Not at all what I expected a porn company to be like.”

 

“Which one is it? Would I have heard of anything they made?”

 

“I should expect so; it’s Charge!”

 

There was a few seconds of silence, in which Dorian’s brain elected to point out to him that he possibly shouldn’t have told her that.

 

“Oh Dorian, did you meet  _ him _ ?”

 

“You do have a way of making little things sound excessively significant, Mae.”

 

“But you were so  _ dear _ , crushing on him, listening to his voice and getting all gooey over his hands when you could have been staring at his special sausage-”

 

“Mae, when will you learn to use the word ‘penis’?” 

 

“When will  _ you _ learn not to interrupt when I’m telling you how adorable you are? Have you met him?”

 

“...He’s my boss, actually.”

 

“Oh!”

 

“He recruited me personally.”

 

“Ah!”

 

“He approached me when I was showering in the gym.”

 

“Maker! And you had a ride on him, of course. Any good?”

 

“... I didn't, actually.”

 

“Dorian, I am  _ very _ disappointed in you,” Mae said with terrible sternness, and Dorian burst out laughing. 

 

“I’m awfully sorry Mae.”

 

“I’m deadly serious! You’ve had the hots for him for years now, and you don’t even give him what for when you’ve got him in the shower with you? Dorian, are you really okay?”

 

It always amazed him how quickly she could shift the gears of a conversation. Her voice was suddenly all caring concern.

 

“I really am okay, I promise. I just…” he took a moment to consider his words, and heard her shifting slightly on the other end of the line. “I did feel a bit out of sorts when I first left home… I didn’t sleep with anyone for months, actually. And casual sex is a lot different here than in Tevinter. People are so much more open about it. And dating is tricky sometimes. I think this move, the porn studio, is good for me though. It probably sounds strange, but I feel like it’s helping me get back to myself. Do you know what I mean?”

 

“Darling, you know what I always say; anything that helps a person get closer to who they really are is not to be slighted. Are you happy?”

 

Dorian considered and smiled. “I’m closer to happy than I have been in a very long time.”

 

“Good.”

 

He could picture the warm smile on her face as she said it, and curled up a little in his chair, letting his free arm slip around his own waist like a placeholder for the hug he knew she’d have given him had they held this conversation in person. 

 

“So, sweetling; what else have you been doing for Southern Thedas’ favourite porn studio? Is it just photos so far?”

 

“Not at all,” Dorian replied brightly, and he told her all about Worshipful Masses, and his planned launch, and the people he’d met, delighted in the back of his mind to realise how much enthusiasm he had for it all, and how much he really was enjoying it. He had had to deceive himself about a hell of a lot of things over the past decade or so, but this wasn’t one of them.

 

“My sweet, I’m so happy for you,” Mae said with a sigh once he had told her everything. “It sounds like they really are treating you well. Though you know, the offer of threats stands. I’m sure you recall how very effective my scathing letters are.”

 

“I remember you burning Anteus’ eyebrows half off with an enchanted envelope, if that’s what you mean.”

 

“He struck you, Dorian! He should have expected nothing less!”

 

“Mae, I adore you. You realise I’m perfectly capable of defending myself, don’t you?”

 

“Yes, but you see, you shouldn’t  _ have _ to.”

 

Dorian’s cheeks warmed. Here was a good friend. He only had a couple of them - maybe the potential for a couple more in the future - but that was all it took to keep him going, to keep him  _ him _ . 

 

“Now,” Mae said, all business again. “How are you going to tell Felix?”

 

“I…” Oh Maker. He hadn’t even thought about that.

 

“Dorian, are you there?... You realise you must tell him, don’t you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“If he somehow finds out the way Thorold and I did, I might have to send  _ you _ threats, young man. You know how sensitive he gets about porn!”

 

“No, I know. How am I going to tell him? It’ll be worse than telling Wynne!”

 

“Your advisor?”

 

“She thinks I’m going to be pressed into doing unnamed dire sex acts of dread.”

 

“Oh dear. You know, Felix will probably be more worried about your health? Why don’t you start with that?”

 

Dorian sighed. “This is probably going to be very awkward, isn’t it.”

 

“Yes, dreadfully,” Mae agreed with good cheer. “But if you call him this afternoon, I’ll bring him over here this evening and get him tipsy and we can have a good old gossip about you to cheer him up.”

 

“You’re a treasure, Mae.”

 

“Obviously, yes.”

 

*

 

“Dory! It’s so nice to hear your voice,” Felix said happily, and Dorian felt a little familiar rush of non-specific relief. His friend was pleased to hear from him. His bestie liked him. He occasionally had to reassure himself of the fact.

 

“I hope I haven’t disturbed you or anything. I know I don’t call often, and-”

 

“Psh, it’s fine. I was doing maths.”

 

Dorian laughed. “You’ve dumbed it down for me, haven’t you. I can always tell. You just drop all terminology and everything is simply ‘maths’.”

 

“Well, I was preparing some class notes on Cramer’s rule, which is to do with linear systems of equations, oh, but only when the system is square and with an invertible coefficient matrix-”

 

“Oh Maker, dumb it back down a touch will you?”

 

Felix chuckled. “I’m doing maths, Dorian. How is your work going?”

 

“Well, I’ve been doing rather a lot of magic.”

 

“Good! You see, it’s nice when we talk about such things on one another’s levels, isn’t it.”

 

Dorian was smiling widely enough that he could feel it in his cheek muscles, and he could hear from his voice that Felix was too. 

 

“So…” Dorian began, placing a delicate toe on the unstable bridge before him. “I’ve got a new job, alongside my studies.”

 

“Oh, how exciting! Is it at the university?”

 

“No, actually, though it’s approved by my advisor so it doesn’t affect my stipend for the work I do with her. It’s at a… a film studio.”

 

“Oh wow! I didn’t realise there  _ were _ any in Skyhold. Film as in actual movies?”

 

“Well…”

 

“Have you met anyone famous? What exactly is your job?”

 

“I… I’ve met some… not  _ exactly _ celebrities…”

 

Even over the long distance call, Dorian could sense Felix putting on his worry hat.

 

“Dorian? What’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me?”

 

“It’s a pornographic studio, called Charge! Studios. They’re quite famous, very well organised and above board.”

 

“Oh. Oh, I… And are you… doing costumes or something? I always said you’d be good at things like that.”

 

He could hear the hope in Felix’s voice, and hated himself a little for having to squash it.

 

“No Felix, I’m appearing in films.”

 

Silence.

 

“Well, one film so far, and a second one soon. And some photos. Mae found out, actually. Some of the photos were in a magazine that she and Thorald like, apparently, which is more than I needed to know about their sex lives, especially when she calls penises things like ‘winkles’, and-”

 

He cut himself off from the babbling, waiting with mounting tension for Felix to say something.

 

“Mae knows?”

 

“Yes. Her finding out made me realise I ought to tell you. I didn’t want you to just accidentally see something and be shocked.”

 

Felix gave a little half-hearted tut. “You know I don’t really look at… that.”

 

“I know. But just in case. And I wanted you to know.”   
  


“Is it safe, Dorian?” Mae’s guess had been right on the money. “Are you… do they let you use condoms?”

 

“It’s in my contract that I can ask for condoms to be used, but they’re really on top of keeping everyone’s health checked. There’s a doctor on staff and I’m contractually obliged to tell them if I have unprotected sex with anyone, and have a check up at a sexual health clinic every two months. They’re really very good about making sure everyone is okay. They even make sure everybody is okay with things that are happening in every scene, to make sure nobody gets distressed or triggered or anything.”

 

“That sounds… very sensible,” Felix said. His voice was a bit frail sounding, but ‘very sensible’ was one of the highest compliments he ever paid. “Are you… happy?”

 

“I’m closer to being happy than I have been in years,” Dorian said, for the second time that afternoon. “I feel it’s a really good fit for me.”

 

“Okay. Okay,” Felix said, sounding decisive.

 

“My darling, I knew you weren’t going to be comfortable with this, but I wouldn’t be doing it if I felt it would harm me. It’s fun and it pays well and doesn’t interfere with my work for the university. I have a fake name so hopefully it won’t harm my career much. You know academics; ten years from now when I’m a professor, it’ll be an amusing talking point.”

 

Felix gave a weak laugh. “Father says that half the people he works with are covering up some sort of perversion. At least you aren’t going to let it embarrass you.”

 

The conversation eased from there into talk about Gereon and his latest project, an update on Felix’s health (fragile but stable, thankfully), some academic chat, more joking about how poorly they understood one another’s fields of expertise, and finally circled back around to;

 

“You’re really okay, Dorian?”

 

“I promise you, I am.” He racked his brain for something, some nugget of satisfaction he could hand Felix, to ease his ever present worry a little. “Do you remember a few years ago when I had that terrible crush on a porn actor?”

 

“Which one?”

 

“Oh come now! There haven’t been  _ that _ many!” He heard Felix giggle. “The Iron Bull.”

 

“Oh, that really big qunari chap? You said he had horns like the handlebars of a poorly customised ATV and-”

 

“And I would love to have a ride, yes. He’s now my boss.”

 

“Maker, Dorian! Did you tell him you liked him?”

 

“I did not, because I am not the tremulous female lead in a dating sim, thank you. He’s awfully nice though. I feel my crush was justified.”

 

“Do you… still have the crush?”

 

“Of course not darling,” Dorian said, although generally he tried his best not to lie to Felix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never written Felix before, and I think I'm strongly influenced by my friend SoManyJack's lovely Felix/Carver story, Sow the Fallow Field, which is well worth reading if you have a couple of hours and room in your heart for a farmer AU (of course you do). He's not a prude, he just worries so much.
> 
> I've never written Mae before either and I like her a lot.
> 
> Thank you for reading, as always. I don't actually know where I'm going with this, as for the very first time I'm writing without an actual plan, and it's odd but very fun. A lot less sex than I'd imagined, so far, but we'll see if we can do something about that.


	8. Mateo, Clark and Eric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If you’d rather feel up the furniture, I’m clearly doing something wrong,” Mateo remarked, reclining attractively against the sofa back.

The photo shoot had gone well, and when Dorian had arrived at the studios, the bitter autumn wind blustering its way through the doors at his back, Bull was at the desk chatting with Leliana, the red haired Orlesian lady who ran Nightingale Security Solutions in the building next door, about the photographer she had recommended. Bull waved Dorian over and showed him the hard copies of the photographs that had evidently just been dropped off.

  


Miss Charter, the photographer, had raided the studio’s vast and eclectic range of props and set pieces and had put together a good display of plaster columns and draped fabric, a couple of the more subtle nude statues that the props room had yielded tucked away near the back, swathed in ivy. The lighting was subtle and faintly sepia hued, suggesting early evening. She’d had Dorian scarcely draped in a massive toga for most of the shoot, arranging the fabric carefully with each new pose so that he was just barely covered, nudity hinted at but never fully revealed. Dorian watched, very pleased, as Bull paged through the photographs.

  


“I told you she was good,” Leliana said, her rich voice full of the good humoured smugness that Dorian couldn’t quite make himself dislike her for. 

  


“She certainly has an excellent eye,” Dorian commented. He looked fantastic in all of them, white and purple fabric flowing elegantly around him, his skin glowing under the lights.

  


Bull didn’t say a word. Not, at least, until he got to the last few photographs. Charter had had Dorian recline, nude but for his jewellery, in a chair for these, an old empire style one, shaped like a half pipe on legs, in smoothly carved wood. Heaven knew where she’d found the thing, but it was the perfect size and shape for Dorian to drape himself in, an elbow on one arm rest, his legs stretched over the other, his body twisted so that while his upper chest faced the viewer, his hips where horizontal, his genitals still not quite visible. He’d managed to lift himself off the seat enough with his legs and arm that, while it looked like he was sitting on the seat cushion, his weight wasn’t really on it, so his buttock looked perfectly shapely. The pressure on his arm made his deltoid stand out perfectly, and the overall pose showed off the musculature of his torso and the shapely length of his legs.

  


He was posed slightly differently in each, and Bull spread the four chair photographs out on the reception desk and stared at them wordlessly for a long minute. Then he tapped the surface of one lightly with his fingertip. 

  


“This one, I think. For the main image on the homepage, and for your individual page too. Okay with that?”

  


“Absolutely,” Dorian agreed readily. A little jolt of nerves suddenly hit him at the fact that Iron Bull was standing here, looking at nude photographs of him and obviously approving. None of the people around him noticed such a blip, of course, but his brain rose to the occasion all the same, with;

  


“May I say how glad I am that Charge! doesn’t airbrush its photography? It’s lovely to know exactly how attractive I am.”

  


Leliana giggled and cuffed his shoulder lightly, and Bull gave him a side-eyed sort of grin. 

  


“You realise the ones we don’t use on the site are going to sell like hot cakes, right? RDQ loved you. It’s rare to see any ‘vints in this industry, never mind Easterners.”

  


Dorian gave a put upon sigh. “I’m ‘exotic’ again, aren’t I,” he said. “I’m always getting that.”

  


Bull smiled at him. “Yeah, but don’t worry, we’re going to make sure it gets you paid this time.”

  


“ _ So _ good to know.” At the mention of money, he couldn’t help but raise a hand to the lapel of his coat. His first winter in Skyhold had been a nightmare; he hadn’t seemed to be able to put on enough layers of clothes at once, and the best coat he could afford had been a repulsive looking quilted thing in bright blue, covered in drawstrings and stupid pockets. He’d spent his nights with several hot water bottles, and his office hours wrapped in a blanket with Wynne looking worriedly at him.

  


However, a few evenings ago he’d sat down to do his bills and had looked at his online bank to see he had over two thousand sovereigns to his name, more money than he’d had at any one time since he came South. He’d known that money was coming in, of course, but he was so used to managing his funds with care from month to month that he hadn’t quite realised how it was building up.

  


The very next day he went out and bought a proper winter coat. 

  


He’d gone to one of the nicer high street mens stores, lined up several contenders, and taken over an hour to choose his ideal, a beautiful bottle green paletot with an asymmetric collar and a slim fitting waist, made of such thick, heavy wool that it felt like he was wrapped in carpet. The Skyhold winter wouldn’t have a chance. He’d actually been uncomfortably warm on the walk from the bus stop to the studio.

  


Bull glanced at Dorian’s fingers fondling the fabric, his shrewd eye taking it in as he did everything.

  


“Nice coat,” he said, gathering up the photos.

  


“Thank you for noticing,” Dorian said. A moment later, it occurred to him that that was the second time he had spoken that exact phrase to Bull, and when he lifted his gaze, he saw Bull looking at him, eyebrow slightly raised, and perceived that he had noticed the fact too. 

  


There was a moment where… he wasn’t sure. They looked at one another, something passing but not anything Dorian could put a name to.

  


Then Leliana said something, and Dorian was so distracted that the words washed past him. He came back to himself with a little jolt and glanced to Leliana, then at the pile of photographs.

  


“If you’ll both excuse me, I need to go and get changed or I’ll be late for my threesome,” he said, and hurried away.

  


*

  


Clark was slumped on his sofa, clearly depressed, when his doorbell rang, and he hauled himself to his feet with a heavy sigh to answer it. In the doorway, in sharp contrast to Clark’s ratty sweats and too-small, worn out t-shirt, was his elegantly dressed and groomed friend, Mateo.

  


“Clark, darling, I heard you got dumped, I’m  _ so _ sorry!” Mateo cried as he pushed into the room, not sounding the least bit sorry. “I’ve come to comfort you.”

  


“Mateo, I’m a grown-ass man, I don’t need a shoulder to cry on,” Clark groused.

  


“It’s not my shoulders I’m offering,” Mateo replied with a twinkle in his eye, and slipped gracefully out of his shirt. 

  


“Mateo, I don’t … uh…”

  


“Won’t it be nice to forget about that whiny, grumpy, assless George for a while?” Mateo insisted, kicking off his shoes and unfastening his belt. 

  


“He wasn’t assless.”

  


“Really,” Mateo purred, sliding his jeans down his legs and turning his back on Clark to look at him over his shoulder. “Did he have anything like this?” He ran his hands up the backs of his upper thighs and squeezed his round, firm ass cheeks with both hands, finishing the manoeuvre with a little slap.

  


“He… he  _ really _ didn’t. But Mateo, we’re friends. Won’t this make things weird?”

  


“Oh Clark, honestly, you’re about the only one of our group of friends I haven’t gone to bed with.”

  


Clark looked doubtful, but Mateo swaggered towards him, semi hard cock bobbing, his whole person emanating confidence. He draped his arms around Clark’s shoulders and brought their faces closer together. “Just think about it,” he said with intimate softness. “You get over George that bit quicker, we both have a lovely time, and we… strengthen our bond.”

  


Clark hesitated for only a moment more, then kissed Mateo hard, wrapping his arms around the other man’s waist and tipping their weight until they dropped together onto the sofa. No words now (they’d already done about a third of the script for the whole thing), just panting and the wet sounds of open mouthed kisses (Garrett having given Dorian a quick and very fascinating crash course in ‘porn tongue’ before they got started) as they both struggled to get Clark out of his clothes. The ratty clothes out of the way, a hard, fit body was revealed, a pleasing match for Mateo’s, and they writhed together on the couch, groping and grinding for a few minutes (careful to ensure the camera could see as much of them as possible). Clark slipped a hand up Mateo’s chest and cupped a firm pec, kneading at it and pinching at the pierced nipple to make him moan; Mateo straddled Clark’s lap and rolled his hips against him, making Clark gasp and curse. Clark thrust a hand into the gaps between the sofa cushions and felt around frantically. His hands left Mateo’s body and Mateo sat up, regarding him with a sardonic look. 

  


“If you’d rather feel up the furniture, I’m clearly doing something wrong,” he remarked, reclining attractively against the sofa back.

  


With a cry, Clark triumphantly whipped a tube of lubricant out from between the sofa cushions and held it aloft for a moment, before squeezing some out onto his fingers and coaxing Mateo to move forward on his knees. Grinning Mateo spread his legs as much as the sofa allowed as Clark reached between his thighs and stroked lube into the cleft of his ass, moaned as Clark pushed his fingers in, writhed as he touched and stroked and stretched his insides.

  


They dwelled for a moment on the shiny ring of Mateo’s anus pulling tight around Clark’s fingers, Mateo’s sounds of pleasure and excitement loud in the small room. Then Mateo lifted himself up, bent his head to Clark’s for one more hungry kiss, grasped Clark’s rigid cock, and sank down onto it in one slow, smooth movement (trying not to be overly aware of the cameras moving to zoom in on both his face and ass). He threw his head back and moaned as he settled his weight on Clark’s hips, Clark panting under him.

  


“Fuck, you feel amazing,” Clark gasped.

  


“Better than George?”

  


“Huh?”

  


“Oh, mission accomplished!” Mateo cried cheerfully, and set about riding Clark with gusto. Smooth, rolling motions of his hips at first, loving the feeling of that good, sturdy cock inside him, letting sounds of pleasure roll out of his throat as Clark grunted underneath him and groped hard at his thighs and buttocks. After a few minutes, Clark grabbed Mateo by the hips and began rolling his pelvis up to meet his downward movements, pushing more deeply into him, and Mateo moaned long and loud. He grabbed hold of the sofa back with one hand, planted the other on the seat behind him, between Clark’s thighs, and used the new balance to ride him harder, his cock bobbing happily in front of him, face rapt with pleasure. 

  


Clark swore at the expression on Mateo’s face and began thrusting up, working his legs, driving his cock into the beautiful man’s ass, his own body rippling with strength, the slap of their flesh meeting loud and shameless, both of them panting, grunting, crying out.

  


Finally, Clark grabbed Mateo’s bouncing cock and stroked it firmly, making Mateo yell with each twisting slide of his grip. Mateo let out a breathless wail, and began to come, not letting up his movements in the least, until Clark was coming too, grunting and groping and pulling Mateo towards him so he could press his face to Mateo’s sternum. Mateo lifted himself off Clark’s cock, and come began trickling out of him, the last little spurt fresh from the source splattering against his inner thigh.

  


They stayed there together, panting and happy, for several long seconds. Clark lifted his face and looked up at Mateo with a dumb smile. Then his expression took on a subtle change and he prodded Mateo in the hip with his thumb, like he was trying to prompt Mateo to do something.

  


What? Oh!

  


Mateo turned his head sharply towards the door, smiling, and Clark turned to follow his gaze. (The doorbell sound effect, Dorian recalled, would be added in later.) 

  


“That’ll be Eric,” Mateo said, climbing a little stiffly off the sofa.

  


“What do you mean? Why is Eric here?” Clark demanded.

  


“I called him earlier and told him I was coming over to cheer you up, and he offered to join me. As back up.”

  


“Back up?”

  


Mateo levelled a very serious look at his friend. “You’ve been  _ very  _ sad and you need lots of friendly support,” he said seriously.

  


“I… you know, I  _ have  _ been very sad,” Clark agreed falteringly.

  


“That’s the ticket,” Mateo said cheerily, and went, naked and sticky, to answer the door.

  


*

  


Naturally performers got rest breaks between sex scenes, being that they weren’t machines, and Dorian and Garrett (or Cassian and Kelvin as they would be known) both had a quick shower, followed by a few minutes of having their hair and makeup sorted out again, then went and sat in the small, comfy room off the sound stage they were set up in that was referred to as the pink room. Dorian had assumed it was a joke about green rooms and gay men, until he got there and found that the whole room - walls, floor, furniture, decor, even the mugs stacked beside the coffee machine - was pink.

  


“Bull decorated it,” Garrett told him, as if that explained anything.

  


Anders was there, ready for them, dressed in counterpoint to Dorian and Garrett’s bathrobes with jeans and a rather bookish looking shirt and v-necked sweater, his hair pulled back in a ponytail. He had shortly arrived from his day job in the medical centre connected to Skyhold’s refugee affairs office, and seemed remarkably cheerful for a man doing what Dorian assumed must be a very emotionally trying job.

  


They all poured cups of coffee and settled down in the overstuffed sofas. Anders and Garrett chatted a bit about the various people working the tech for the shoot, and Dorian did his best to put faces to names. Grim was directing them, and there were two camera operators and a sound technician. A dark haired woman with a fluting sort of voice had been speaking to Grim when Dorian arrived on set, and Anders told him that she was the musician.

  


“Maryden writes almost all of our music,” he explained. “We should be glad that folk music isn’t that popular these days, because if it was she would be making her living doing that. As it is, she writes those lovely soundtracks for us to fuck to, to make ends meet.”

  


“I reckon Krem has the hots for her,” Garrett interjected, and Anders’ face lit up. “I saw him standing on a chair the other day, trying to see her through the window of the sound room. I think he actually thought he was being subtle.”

  


“I saw him struggling to be casual around her too, I think,” Anders added, nodding. “He almost poured his water bottle up his nose.”

  


“I wish I had gossip to contribute,” Dorian said sadly. “Unfortunately, I don’t know that many people yet.”

  


“Who did you meet on your first video?” Anders asked.

  


“Well, Delrin, obviously. I didn’t catch the names of the camera and sound people, but a chap called Carver was directing and running the main camera.”

  


Anders and Garrett glanced at each other and shared a smirk. “You won’t be seeing Carver today,” Anders told him. Garrett rolled his eyes.

  


“Oh?”

  


“He’s my little brother,” Garrett explained. “He has it written into his contract that he doesn’t even have to be in the building at the same time as me if I’m anything less than fully clothed.”

  


“He didn’t know Garrett was working here when he applied for the job,” Anders said with a giggle.

  


“We both showed up to a shoot one day and got the shock of our lives. It came down to mutually assured destruction; we don’t give one another any shit, or our mother gets told where we work. I’d get the worst of it, because he’s a camera man, rather than actually, you know, getting naked.”

  


“Though Bull did offer him the opportunity,” Anders said lightly.

  


Garrett’s head snapped up. “He did?!” Dorian could see a curious mix of emotions on his face; pride and big brotherly protectiveness and the big brotherly urge to be a dick.

  


Stitches put his head around the door then, and told them it was time to get back on set.

  


*

  


Mateo lay on his back on the rumpled bed clothes, his body rocked on the soft mattress by the movements of the two men above him. Clark straddled Mateo’s chest on his knees; Eric knelt behind him, arms wrapped tight around Clark’s middle, fucking Clark in slow, gentle movements, head pillowed against the back of Clark’s shoulder. Clark was moaning and grunting with every movement, his eyes closed, while Mateo fondled and teased his cock with his hands, every so often tenderly sucking on the tip with moist lips, tickling it with the tip of his tongue. 

  


After long, luxurious minutes of this, Clark groaned weakly and fell forwards, supporting his weight on his hands as Eric began to fuck him more firmly. Mateo did his best to shift his position under the barrier of their bodies, and managed to get his mouth around Clark’s cock properly, sucking enthusiastically, getting the thick flesh as deeply into his mouth as he could in the awkward position. Soon enough, Clark cried out and came, body jerking between those of his friends, his come slopping thickly over Mateo’s lips. Eric followed him, panting harshly, pulling out in time to get most of his load over Clark’s back. 

  


There was a moment of breathless quiet, Mateo stroking Clark’s hair and Eric sweetly kissing at the back of Clark’s shoulder, before they both moved, sliding on the bed so Eric could kiss Mateo’s cum-sticky lips, then keep kissing down, down his neck, his chest, until he got to his pierced nipples and began to suck on them. Mateo gave a cry of delight, which only grew louder when Clark bent his head over his groin and began to suck him off. Mateo arched his back and flexed his long legs, eager and unashamed and thoroughly enjoying the pleasure he was being given, until finally he came too, and the three of them collapsed onto the bed, limbs tangled together, happy and tired.

  


Clark’s phone buzzed on the bedside table and he reached over with a grunt to pick it up, raised an eyebrow as he looked at the screen.

  


“It’s George,” he said darkly.

  


There was a pause; Eric and Mateo exchanged a worried glance, then looked to Clark to see his reaction.

  


Clark tossed the phone off the bed, lay his head down on Mateo’s stomach, reached out to take hold of Eric’s hand, and appeared to doze off.

  


*

  


Grim had been very pleased with the shoot (as far as Dorian could tell), having only had them retake one small part when Eric first went into the apartment, and he cut them all loose by 6pm. The studio was mostly quiet then, and Dorian found himself walking through the corridors like a tourist, looking around at the photos of performers on the walls, the posters and DVD covers in frames, thinking about what he was involved in now.

  


He still felt very pleased about it all.

  


He went home that night feeling more physically satisfied that he had in far too long. He was in such a good mood, in fact, that when Sera came over with a bottle of ‘mystery grog’ with a label in a language neither of them recognised, he showed her his issue of RDQ, and was very tolerant when she laughed at his penis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I still have no clear path as to where this story is going and how it's going to pan out, but I'm certainly enjoying it.  
> And naturally Sera laughed at Dorian's penis, because penises are hilarious, regardless of whether or not they tend to be attached to people you are attracted to. If you disagree, I won't believe you.  
> Do let me know what you think.


	9. Passage of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian and Cassian are both doing nicely, and Dorian has an unexpected conversation.

Cassian Corso’s launch took place the day the new film (entitled ‘Clark Got Dumped’, a title in Charge!’s inimitable style) was released, and Dorian observed with great interest and satisfaction the activity in the comments on both the video and his smart new page on the site. The photograph of him that Charter had taken looked wonderful, and even though his list of works only had three items on it so far, Skinner had set it up so that it looked a bit more impressive, with links to RDQ and reviews of the two films included, and had also written a nicely vague and impressive sounding backstory for Cassian that Dorian only too happily signed off on.

 

The day the launch took place, Dorian had precious little time to really enjoy it as he was proctoring exams, repeatedly begging his students to turn their phones off and make sure they had all the stationary they’d need even though he knew it to all be in vain. As it was, it was only after work, and dinner, that he sat down in his pyjamas and fleecy dressing gown (the weather being quite cold now) to really look at the new page and watch his new film.

 

Krem and Bull hadn’t been exaggerating about him having accrued a following; he noted that, over the course of that first day, the view counter for Worshipful Masses increased by nearly a third, and the comments were almost embarrassingly positive. On top of that, Clark Got Dumped had been enormously popular. There was much complimentary discussion of his looks and his voice, much chatter about his ‘exotic’ appearance and his background, much speculation about his history due to his obviously high class accent and demeanor, and a surprising amount of rhapsodising about the facial expression he made when he was penetrated. He looked more closely at the film after reading some of those last ones, but wasn’t sure that he was doing anything that extraordinary with his face; it was the same expression he’d always made, surely. If people liked it though, all to the good.

 

*

 

Dorian’s mind was kept off the encroaching autumn chill by busyness. Marking exams and coming up with plans to catch up those who failed and supporting Wynne as best he could took up his 9-5, while his steady process of chipping away at his thesis and the occasional afternoon or evening of work for the studio took up the rest of his time. 

 

Cassian Corso’s toga photographs were indeed snapped up by RDQ, who decided to keep hold of them for their spring issue. Mae and Thorold were warned accordingly. Cassian had a very nice phone conversation with Couteau, who suggested that he might participate in one of their photo love stories at some point, an idea that sounded both horribly tacky and wonderfully fun.

 

Dorian, with a little more money in his pocket, allowed himself more socialisation. He and Sera went out to bars every now and then, usually ending their evening in one of the many tiny hole-in-the-wall eateries that Sera kept discovering around the city, with Dorian playing wingman, or coaxing Sera down from tables, or occasionally defusing potential fights. His evenings with her were invariably chaotic, exhausting, and thoroughly enjoyable. 

He had made a good friend in Ina Lavellan, and Golni and Reece often hung around with her, so they became his friends too. For the first time in years, it didn’t feel like an imposition to have new people in his life.

 

Cassian was scheduled for a major ensemble shoot, but was asked to step in in the interim after another actor dropped out of a smaller anthology piece, and so was filmed for a 20 minute slot of pleasuring himself with various dildos. It was filmed on a very convincing set that gave the impression that he and the luxuriously padded sun lounger he was enjoying himself on were on a sunny beach, when in fact it was merely a pile of sand in the corner of a massive sound stage, with chilly rain beating against the outside of the building.

 

Dorian went on a couple of dates, but though he generally enjoyed himself, nothing seemed to really get any traction. He went out for dinner and subsequently slept with a nice enough elven man whom he met online, but they didn’t call one another afterwards. He met up with a human who claimed to be a student of Tevinter culture and who turned out to be one of those repellant neo-Venatori types, and Dorian  _ might _ have set a spirit to haunt him (though only a little one). 

 

Cassian got his first bit of trouble in the form of a spiteful anonymous letter that was sent to him at the studios. Being no sort of fool, he took it straight to Krem, who glowered so intently at the letter Dorian wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that the sender, at that very moment, briefly caught fire. He assured Dorian he would take care of it. Two days later, Skinner phoned him up sounding smug and told him a name and address which meant nothing to Dorian, until she asked him if he wanted the person to be threatened or just warned. Dorian decided to be moderate and asked for a warning. Skinner seemed disappointed.

 

Dorian was pleased to find that Wynne was gradually coming to terms with his new job, and seemed a lot less worried. Felix was another matter, and Dorian received from him a very well meant care package of condoms, along with a heartfelt letter of affection and concern. Dorian could picture the cringing look on Felix’s dear face as he put the thing together, and phoned him up with reassurances and funny stories about his new colleagues. Sera seemed to have found that the novelty of her friend and neighbour being a porn star had worn off after a while, and it was refreshing to have her simple, good-humoured acceptance. Mae kept emailing him pictures of men in various types of esoteric, sexy clothing as ‘suggestions’, with the insistence that he would look very sultry in them. He got revenge by sending Thorold links to pages of Wicked Grace strategy discussion, which he could happily dissect and theorise over for hours, much to Mae’s distress.

 

*

 

All in all, the people who knew about Dorian’s change in circumstance had been wonderful. His friends were as accepting and supportive as they could manage, and if anybody else at the university had found out, he hadn’t seen anything to indicate it, or even heard any rumours about himself. Until one day when Wynne had a bad headache (her health being somewhat fragile after a bad injury some years ago), and he took on one of her seminar groups. 

 

It was nothing he hadn’t done before, and the material was quite straight forward. The seminar was for a group of second-year students who were going over the materials and topics they’d need to brush up on for the last leg of the semester, quite simple; just a review, a few words of introduction on the topics they hadn’t covered in depth before, and some q&a. They were all familiar enough with him that nobody felt hard done by by the professor’s absence, and they were all comfortable asking questions. In fact, it was quite a relaxing way to spend a couple of hours at the end of an afternoon.

 

Until Dorian noticed one of the students looking at him a bit strangely, and got a cold feeling all down his back.

 

It was a girl called Coral, a human from the Free Marches who had always struck him as that quiet, smart sort who did well in school but struggled with friendships. She usually stared at her notes all through any sort of class or lecture, but this time, every time he looked in her direction, she was staring at him nervously.

 

‘Either she has a crush, or she’s seen my porn’ Dorian thought to himself in that clear little mental voice that bypassed all worries in the upper levels of thought. Given his rather unmissable presence at the university’s pride celebration last summer, it was unlikely that she could consider him an actual romantic prospect for herself, making the crush option possible though rather less likely. Girls did not stare like that at a man they knew to be unobtainable. 

 

Outwardly, Dorian continued to calmly answer questions about the Fade Theory unit, while inwardly he freaked out. A student, an unworldy nineteen-year-old for whom he was to some degree responsible, had seen him having sex. She had recognised him as Cassian Corso, and even the compartmentalisation of having his false name was only a minor comfort. What would come of this? What the hell would he do if she spoke to him about it? He seriously doubted there was anything in the university staff code of conduct advising on what one should do if a student had questions about one’s pornographic film career.

 

The nervous looks continued until the end of the seminar, intensified somewhat during Dorian’s final round up, and were mercifully brought to a halt when the students filed out of the room. A particularly poorly organised boy lingered for a few minutes to try and fit everything into his bag, and when he closed the door behind him, Dorian breathed a sigh of relief.

 

Then there was a knock.

 

To Dorian’s resigned lack of surprise, the door opened a crack and Coral peeped in, a pleading expression on the visible sliver of her face.

 

“What can I do for you,” Dorian asked politely, and she blushed pink and slipped in through the door.

 

“Um, I saw.. There was…”

 

Dorian suppressed a wince, and hoped desperately that he wasn’t to get in trouble.

 

“What is it, Coral?”

 

“I… you… K-Kelvin Thrust...”

 

Oh hell.

 

“Ah, yes,” Dorian said, holding tightly onto his composure. “My second job. Well, I’m sure you can understand that I’m not eager for news of my career to spread any more widely than is necessary, though I can assure you that the university is aware of my other employer.”

 

Coral nodded rapidly, then stood awkwardly, staring at her hands as she twisted them together. 

The gesture reminded him viscerally of Felix when they first knew one another in the upper school of the Circle. Dorian allowed himself a small eye roll, and asked kindly; “Was there something you wanted to ask me?”

 

Coral nodded and, after much sputtering , managed to whisper out; “How do… how do you be sexy?”

 

Dorian was surprised. It certainly wasn’t the sort of question he’d expected from her, that was for sure. And that thought was followed by a realisation of how much effort it must have taken her to ask.

 

“Sit down,” he told her, and she obediently placed herself on a chair as he perched on the corner of the desk a few feet away from her. 

 

“Now,” Dorian began, drawing every scrap of his composure around him, “Are you asking me how to attract others, or how to actually have sex?”

 

“...both?” Coral said, uncertainly.

 

“Well, in the first case, I would suggest it’s a case of considering the person you are trying to attract, and also your own comfort zone and such. It wouldn’t do to go outside of your own mores to attract another person, no matter how much you admire them. In the second case, well, I suppose safety first. Safety and consent, clear communication being essential to both. Don’t believe too much of what you read on the internet, and try things out with your partner until you figure out what works for you both. How’s that for a start?”

 

She offered him a shy smile and nodded.

 

“I’m afraid I don’t really know how such things work for women,” Dorian continued. “Those are good guidelines, but there may be somebody more informed that you could talk to. Have you tried the counsellors at the student centre?”

 

“They’re a bit… cliquey,” Coral said. She had a point there, Dorian thought. They had a way of gathering in one part of the office and lifting their heads in unison to look inquisitively at anyone who walked in. Even with his sturdy confidence, it was quite discomfiting. 

 

“Your friends?”

 

Coral gave a twitch of a smile. “They know less than me.”

 

“Well,” Dorian said with a sigh, folding his arms, “The best advice I can give you is don’t tolerate anybody making you feel unsafe, even yourself. That counts during sex, and also on dates or during flirtation, or even picking out your clothes. And if you pretend to be somebody you aren’t and to like things that you actually hate, you may as well not bother because none of it will make you happy. Beyond that, I suppose we all just have to figure it out for ourselves.”

 

“That’s… yeah, that’s sounds really sensible.”

 

Dorian snorted. “It’s rare that I’m accused of  _ that _ ,” he said. “Is there anything else you wanted you know?”

 

“How do I ask somebody on a date?”

 

“Hmm. Well, personally I would flirt a little and see how they react. Then, if you feel shy, just be direct. Say something like; ‘I like spending time with you, would you like to go on a date with me’, and hope for the best.”

 

Coral nodded, still looking nervous. Bless her heart, she’d probably been trying in vain to psyche herself up for weeks.

 

“You’ll be fine,” he assured her. “The worst case scenario is that they’ll say no, in which case just say you hope they don’t mind you asking, and go immediately to your best friend and make them go clubbing with you. Or something equally fun.”

 

“Yeah…  _ yeah _ . The worst case, it really isn’t that bad,” she said wonderingly.

 

“Most likely the other person will be flattered no matter what,” he assured her.

 

She nodded. “Thanks. That’s made me feel a lot better.”

 

“I’m glad,” Dorian replied, relieved that it seemed to be over. Coral got to her feet, picking up her book bag.

 

“Would you mind awfully not saying too much about my other career?” he asked. “As I said, I’ve cleared things with the university admin, but I’d rather not have the whole student body know if I can help it. It could make things a little strange.” Coral blushed brightly and nodded agreement. It was funny, Dorian thought; she wasn’t at all the type he would have expected to watch porn. 

 

“Um… what’s he like?” she asked.

 

“Hm? Oh, you mean Kelvin Thrust? He’s very charming, apart from his surname. He has a brother who’s about as good looking, and neither of them seem to make the least bit of effort towards their appearance. It’s sickening.”

 

She gave him a little grin, thanked him again, and slipped out of the door. 

 

Well, Dorian considered, that hadn’t gone as badly as he’d expected. Maybe he shouldn’t be worrying about people finding out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the most eventful chapter this time, but I hope you enjoyed it. I'm not great at giving an impression of passage of time, and this is my attempt.


	10. Shop Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian and Zevran form a bond and exchange some gossip.

“No, it’s definitely not coming out,” Dorian’s new friend Zevran said with unhelpful cheer.

 

“How exactly did it get in there?” Dorian asked through gritted teeth.

 

“It goes where it wants to go, follows the paths that most intrigue it, investigates what nooks and crannies it may find most enjoyable, and leads me along with it, as often to joy as to disaster,” Zevran said fluidly, with the flair of a master storyteller.

 

Dorian twisted as much as he could given the awkward angle and looked at Zevran with a raised eyebrow, only to receive a cheeky smile in return. 

 

“What, you want me to try again?” Zevran asked, and he moved just enough that Dorian couldn’t help but give a cry. “There, you see? We are stuck together until… until at least whatever is happening over there has ceased to occupy everyone’s interest. So it is just as well that we get along well together, is it not?”

 

Dorian sighed and conceded the point.

 

He did quite like Zevran; they’d met only a few hours ago in the orange room (this particular sound studio’s equivalent of the pink room, and which in any other film studio in Thedas would be called a  _ green _ room) before the shoot, and had immediately hit it off, with a shared enjoyment of cleverly worded barbs and recreational flirting, and a shared history of leaving their home countries not entirely voluntarily (a surprisingly brief discussion that Zevran had skillfully steered away from becoming maudlin).

 

They had shot a few scenes for a film based around a party that Krem had mentioned to him at the last meeting. The plot was that a group of (hot, male, horny) friends all gathered together to celebrate two of their number getting engaged, and over the course of the evening’s festivities, pairs and groups would break away into various sexual scenarios. It was a longer film than Dorian had participated in before, with the estimated final edit stretching to about two hours, and the scenes of actual party socialising had been well written with plenty of humour. 

 

Dorian and Zevran’s scene had started when two police officers (portrayed by Delrin and an excruciatingly pretty Orlesian man called Michel who went by the corny but very appropriate ‘Gabriel d’Angelle on screen) knocked on the door after an angry neighbour called in a noise complaint. Their characters (Nino and Rowan, respectively), in a tipsy bid to save the party spirit, decided to seduce the officers and coaxed them off to a bedroom. They had run through the scene clothed beforehand, which Dorian had found rather amusing, and so had gotten the slightly awkward positioning down first try in the shoot; Dorian laying on his back on the large bed, Zevran on his belly and elbows lying at right angles to him, while they both got nicely railed (Dorian drew Michel, and as much as he liked Delrin was quite pleased, what with variety being the spice of life) and about halfway through they began kissing and groping one another. They’d already shot their final scene in the movie that morning, a rather sweet little touch in which both police officers sheepishly handed over their phone numbers. 

 

Therefore they were mostly done for the day, and were still on the bed, still at right angles to one another. Only now, Zevran’s hair was stuck in Dorian’s earring, and neither of them had quite the coordination to get up without yanking painfully on the other’s person.

 

All the crew, along with Krem and Dalish, were gathered around a laptop looking at something recorded in one of the other stages, another sex scene, which was for some reason causing contention. Every now and then, Skinner (who had been stage managing the various parts of the shoot) would snarl something at Grim, who had been directing. He would respond by narrowing his eyes and pointing decisively at a particular area of the screen, at which point the gathered crowd would begin a low voiced discussion. This whole cycle had happened at least four times since Grim had indicated the scene was done, and Dorian didn’t see it coming to a halt any time soon.

 

At least he had somebody interesting to talk to.

 

“I thought Carver and Garrett were never in the building at the same time,” Dorian said vaguely, having noticed them both wandering around at various points during the day.

 

“Oh, a shoot like this is all hands on deck,” Zevran replied, toying with a loose lock of his very attractive hair. “All the crew are in, so Carver has just had to be careful not to enter his brother’s sound stage. Rocky made a sign to put on the doors that says ‘Beware - Hawke in Progress’ to help.”

 

“It’s like a charming sort of farce!” Dorian said, delightedly.

 

“Oh, very little around here is taken entirely seriously. There are rules of conduct of course, but all else… well, did you meet the timid hulk yet?”

 

“The who?”

 

“Marit Adaar. You’ve seen him at least, surely? Bull keeps trying to get him into more films. He’d be a wonderful asset, of course. But he’s so dreadfully shy, he’s just a ball of nerves whenever anyone points a camera at him. And the viewers can tell.”

 

Dorian thought back to the scene Marit had performed in the Worshipful Masses anthology, and hmmed agreement. 

 

“A man that big and powerful looking, and he’s so nervous whenever there’s attention on him he practically falls apart. Maker knows why he got into the business in the first place. Except, I have a feeling one of the Chargers - you know who I mean by that, yes? - might have sponsored him somehow. Perhaps a crush?”

 

“He would be terribly attractive if he didn’t look like a rabbit in the headlights all the time,” Dorian mused. “I know Ina and Golni have been trying to psyche him up, but… I wonder if there’s anything else we could do.”

 

“Hmm. I wonder which of the Chargers it was…” Zevran said, distractedly.

 

Dorian’s impression of Zevran from the start had been that he was the sort of person who shouldn’t be permitted to be bored, for the sake of those around him. Best keep him occupied.

 

“Do all of the Chargers perform? Dalish told me she used to, and I’ve seen some of Stitches’ lovely photographs.”

 

“Everyone but Krem has been in something, to some degree. Though I believe Rocky and Grim dropped out of being in front of the camera in the early days. Krem… just doesn’t want to do it, I suppose. They’re all mostly behind the camera nowadays, though I think it’s more that they want to keep control of all the admin among themselves rather than any other reason. They’re all quite attractive.”

 

Dorian offered agreement and racked his brain for something else to talk about. What had he heard mentioned at the meeting a few weeks ago?

 

“Somebody mentioned something about a ‘VT’ piece at the last meeting I went to. What does that mean? Is it some sort of shooting style?”

 

“You may be thinking of the old television term ‘video tape’ perhaps. No, VT is how Krem tends to refer to ‘Vander Thrallcock’. He’s a writer who comes up with scripts for the studio every now and then.”

 

“That must be a fake name.  _ Please  _ tell me it is.”

 

“It is absolutely a fake name,” Zevran replied, smirking. “Actually, he… no, I will let you find out for yourself. But yes, he wrote quite a lot of the longer pieces the studio has put out over the years. Ah, let me think… ‘Wicked Eyes and Wicked Parts’ was one of his, ‘Travels of a Scholar’ which was the historical one that the Divine got asked her opinion on in that news show, do you remember? And he did that one last year with the Deep Roads scenes. I was in that, it was such fun. And of course, all the Hard in Hightown porn parodies are by him.”

 

“I’ve seen a lot of those,” Dorian said, surprised. “They really are very well written. You know, I never really noticed the names of writers and directors of porn before I came to work here.”

 

“Well, if you had, somebody was getting it wrong, you know.”

 

“So he’s writing a new one? I wonder if- oh, one broke away from the pack!”

 

Carver had indeed wandered away from the group still arguing around the tablet on the other side of the huge room, and moved slowly in their direction, looking at his phone. 

 

“Oh Carver,” Zevran called in gentle sing-song. “Oh most handsome Hawke sibling!”

 

Carver frowned , then glanced up, frowned harder when he saw them both there on the bed.

 

“Why are you two still here? Don’t you want to go and get cleaned up?”

 

“Save us Carver,” Dorian cried, giving it his best damsel. “We’re trapped!” He and Zevran each pointed a finger and the significant snarl of golden hair and matching metal at Dorian’s earlobe. Carver rolled his eyes, but pocketed his phone and leaned over to start untangling them. After a minute or so, he scowled and opened his mouth to speak.

 

“Before you ask,” Dorian noted, “No, I can’t just take the earring out. The catch is part of the tangle.”

 

Carver tutted, opened his mouth again.

 

“Also, I refuse to let anyone cut my hair.” 

 

Carver gave Zevran a glare.

 

“What? It is my crowning glory!”

 

Carver toiled away, his phone buzzing softly every now and then.

 

“Chatting with somebody?” Zevran asked cheekily.

 

“Somebody sexy?” Dorian contributed.

 

“Somebody as sexy as us?” Zevran added with a pout.

 

Carver gave a little smirk and another eye roll. “Where’s Minrathous?” he asked, abruptly.

 

“It’s on the Eastern coast of the High Reaches, on an island just off the shore. Well, some of it’s on the mainland now, residential areas. Why?” Dorian replied.

 

Carver gave a shrug. “Chatting with a guy from there. He’s nice.”

 

“How unexpected,” Zevran said brightly. “I’ve never met a nice Tevinter. I thought your people only came in ‘Mean’, ‘Sybaritic’ or ‘Tedious Brainbox’.”

 

“I’m a combination of the latter two,” Dorian agreed. “The only nice Tevinter I’ve ever met is my best friend Felix.”

 

Zevran paused, then said, softly and intently; “Protect him.”

 

Dorian got the giggles. Fortunately, at that moment, Carver gave a sharp tug on his ear and Dorian felt the hair pull free. He and Zevran both sat up, Zevran tidying his hair and Dorian removing his earring before anything else happened to it. Carver pulled out his phone and meandered away again without a word. The knot of people across the room were still arguing. Two robes had been left on the mattress next to Dorian, and he handed one to Zevran before putting on his own. The others in the room didn’t seem to notice as they left, and they chatted companionably through showering and drying their hair.

 

They were about to leave the building together, Zevran in the middle of a hilarious story about Leliana and one of her employees, a big hard-line qunari who still went by Sten, helping to deal with an anti-porn protest in the parking lot the previous spring, when Dorian felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find Iron Bull right next to him.

 

A little shiver went down his back.

 

“Hey, you got time for a quick meeting?” Bull asked pleasantly. “Just you and me.”

 

In his peripheral vision, Dorian saw Zevran glance back and forth between him and Bull, then give an eyebrow gesture that should have been adult rated all by itself.

 

“Certainly,” Dorian replied and, with a farewell wave to Zevran, allowed Bull to lead him into an office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what? The more I write of this, the more immured I become to the idea that there is no plot. It's just a bunch of set pieces that will have a nice ending. But is that so bad?  
> Definitely no plot in this chapter, though I did very much enjoy writing Zevran. I love the way he speaks.  
> No points for guessing who VT is, I'm sure you understand.  
> And Carver is totally chatting with Felix over a dating app of some sort. Though that'll possibly never actually come up in the story, so there you go.  
> Hope you're enjoying it!


	11. Heart to Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bull and Dorian get a few things out in the open.

“I just wanted to run a couple of ideas by you,” Bull said, closing the door of the little meeting room off the reception area behind them. There was a small table and several chairs inside, and Bull dropped a handful of papers on the table and sat down heavily, waving Dorian to a chair.

 

“What sort of things?”

 

“You remember me mentioning something before about virtual reality? The head set stuff?”

 

Dorian nodded.

 

“Well, I’m still really keen to do it, and I’ve got enough people interested that we’ve bought the camera equipment needed, started looking at how to market it, safety advice we’d need to give, that sort of stuff. But we’re having trouble finding people to actually… get fucked by the person wearing the rig.”

 

“...rig?” Dorian asked, not liking the sound of it much himself.

 

“Okay, how it’s supposed to go it this,” Bull began, and slid down in his chair, kicking his feet up onto the table so that he was looking at Dorian from between his own raised knees.

“Imagine somebody is fucking me.”

 

“I- all right.” Further words were lost, his brain overwhelmed by the effort of not staring at the very large bulge in Bull’s jeans that he now had a first rate view of.

 

“They wear this whole camera get up that records in different streams - I think ‘stream’ is the right word - so when we load it all up into a computer programme that makes it look 3D when you watch it through a VR headset.”

 

“Sounds fascinating,” Dorian said, uncertainly.

 

“So, the idea is, somebody downloads it and watches it through their headset, or even just on their TV if they don’t have the VR gear, and it looks like they’re the one fucking the actor or actress. We’ll figure out some for people who want to be fucked once we get the hang of it, Grimm says it’ll be simpler to start this way.”

 

“So, it’s intended to be used with a fleshlight stuck to the wall or something?”

 

Bull took his feet down from the table and sat back up. “Yeah, or there are these things that you can hook up to a PC. Grimm says we can ship the video with a little bit of software that’ll tell the, uh, the sheath or whatever it’s called to vibrate or squeeze in certain places on the film.”   
  


“Really?!”

 

“Crazy, right? I had no idea this shit even existed, or I’d have actually bought a desktop. Grimm told me it’s called ‘dildonics’, which I, heh, I can’t say without laughing.”

 

They both enjoyed a little giggle for a minute or so, like a couple of kids.

 

“Anyway, the rig looks pretty weird, and we’ve tried it with a couple of different people. But they, uh, freaked out. Look, I’m not going to make anybody do anything they don’t feel totally comfortable with, but you seem to me like a great prospect for doing this and I’d like you to consider trying it. What do you say?”   
  


“What does the rig look like?” Dorian asked.

 

Bull pulled a photograph printed onto regular paper from the pile on the table and handed it to him. It showed a picture of… Dorian wasn’t quite sure, possibly Stitches, nude but for a sort of reinforced vest thing that supported something like a cross between an overly complex steadicam get-up and the supermarket-bought scary robot costume that Felix had worn to a party when he and Dorian were twelve. The overall effect was equal parts laughable and creepy.

 

“I think I could cope with it,” Dorian said with a nod. “It would make it a tad trickier to get off, but I’d certainly be happy to give it a try. Why did you think of me particularly?”

 

Bull smiled and leaned his elbows on the table, bringing his face closer to Dorian’s. “Have you been looking at the comments on the films you’re in?”

 

“To some degree,” Dorian replied. “It gets rather surreal though. I tend to look at the first few that come up when each one is released, just to make sure it’s been well received.” He decided not to mention that he’d been put off by a few racist comments that must have gotten past whoever had been moderating that day.

 

“There’s a lot of chatter about one particular feature of your performances.”

 

“Oh?”

 

Bull grinned. “There’s a particular face you make when you first get penetrated that’s really caught attention.”

 

“Really? I had no idea!”

 

“I noticed it myself when you did that short for us on the sunlounger. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one that picked up on it. We’re probably going to try and get some photos of that face at some point.”

 

Dorian preened a little, trying to think what sort of expression he could possibly have been making. Normally, when he was being penetrated, he was concentrating more on the dick in his ass, rather than his face.

 

“Anyway, we want you for the project partly because of that. And you’ve got a real nice fan base, you know? There’ll be plenty of people eager to buy a movie that can give them the experience of fucking you, even if they don’t have the headset and have to just watch it on a regular screen, I’m pretty sure.”

 

“Well that’s certainly flattering!” Dorian said with a laugh. “Count me in.”

 

“Great,” Bull said, showing Dorian a bright grin that had his heart doing a little flip in his chest. “Speaking of future projects, did anybody mention the new Vernon Thrallcock piece to you?”

 

“Yes, Krem mentioned it in a meeting a few weeks ago, and Zevran filled me in about some of his previous works.”

 

“They’re usually our biggest budget pictures,” Bull explained. “Everybody gets real excited. We just got finished with the script, and it’s going to be  _ awesome _ . It’s set on a pirate ship, so we get to take all the cool costumes and swords and shit out of storage, and it’s for an all male cast, which VT hasn’t done before. And at our last meeting, when we were discussing roles, your name came up.”

 

“Really?” Dorian said, straightening in his seat. 

 

“They tend to be kind of long to work on, but good fun too. Everybody’ll be in a great mood. And it’s looking like shooting dates are going to be outside of term time. You think you’d be interested?”

 

“Absolutely! Who would I be playing?”

 

“A sex slave, being kept chained up in the quarters of the captain of a wealthy Orlesian merchant ship, which gets raided by pirates. You’d have a great outfit, sort of a belly dancer look is what we were thinking.”

 

“I’m to be ‘exotic’ again, am I?” Dorian asked. “That does sound rather fun.”

 

“It will be.” Bull shifted a little in his chair. “I know where you’re coming from with the exotic thing. I’ve gotten laid so much for looking unusual. Do you mind it?”

 

Dorian shrugged. “I’m used to it. Even in Minrathous, where lighter complexions are more the norm, I got called exotic looking. I just prefer my looks be appreciated on their own merit, if you see what I mean”

 

“Well, I sure as hell appreciate them,” Bull said serenely, and Dorian felt his cheeks warm.

 

Bull paused, audibly, then asked; “Is everything okay? Skinner mentioned you got some harassing messages? And that she’d found a few shitty comments on one of your movies that’d got through the net.”

 

Dorin shrugged. “I’m fine. It wasn’t unexpected, and I’ve dealt with worse.”

 

Bull frowned and gave his a searching, serious sort of look. “Really?”

 

Dorian bit at his inner lip a little. This was always hard to talk about, and Maker knew there was no need for him to discuss it. If he told Bull it was no big deal, he was quite sure the topic would be dropped. But, all the same, he felt that talking to Bull about it, even a little, might actually make him feel better.

 

“In Tevinter, there are different laws applying to the old Altus families, the ruling class, than the rest of the population. Did you know that?”

 

Bull nodded. “Krem told me about it. He rants.”

 

“I don’t blame him.” Dorian sighed. “An Altus has medical power of attorney over their children until said children are 35 years old. It’s ostensibly so that magic can be monitored if a family suspects that a mage has started to lose their grip on their power and is becoming a possession risk. However, it’s actually so that parents can intervene if their heirs don’t grow into the ideal family representative. My father… he wasn’t happy with having a successor who was gay. So, under the law, he was able to seize me from my friend’s house and send me off for… for  _ therapy _ .”

 

“Shit,” Bull said hoarsely, and reached across the table to grip Dorian’s hand. His fingers were warm and rough textured. Dorian squeezed back.

 

“Conversion therapy in Tevinter might consist of anything from mere brainwashing, all the way to actual blood magic, used with the intention of altering the way a person’s mind and body work. My father wanted the ‘issue’ dealt with quickly, so he went for what I suppose he saw as the most effective option… some friends helped me get away as I was being transported to the so called ‘hospital’, and I had to flee the country to escape my family’s influence. Skyhold was the first place I found that was willing to give a Tevinter man whose  _ loving family _ were publicly searching for him refugee status and protection, and my old mentor helped me to convince the university to take me on. That’s about it.”

 

Bull looked searchingly into his eyes for a moment, then nodded solemnly. “I get it,” he said. “Some of it, at least. Leaving the Qun was a rough time for me. It’s hard to love something and want to be as far from it as possible all at once, right?”

 

Dorian squeezed his lips together and nodded, looking down at the table.”

 

“I know it isn’t exactly the same situation,” Bull went on, “but I do get it. I feel like I did the right thing, but I also regret… well, I almost made a pretty huge mistake.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Suffice to say, a real good friend helped me see what I ought to be doing.” The corners of his lips twitched. “A friend who works here now, weirdly enough.”

 

“So, you left the Qun and started a porn studio?” Dorian asked, smiling a little.

 

“Not right away. I’d been sent to pose as a mercenary in the South. Gathered up the Chargers to give me some verisimilitude. I’m guessing somebody told you we had kind of an interesting past, right?”

 

Dorian nodded. “Ina told me.”

 

Bull smiled. “Ina. Yeah. She’s a great friend, you know? Well, after the Qun and I parted ways, a bunch of things happened while they tried to kill me, then to discredit me, and then mercenary work just wasn’t working for us anymore. I heard about a security company that was opening here and came by to see if Leliana would be interested in us… and I saw the sign on this place saying it was to let. I had an idea, turned out to be a damn good one.”

 

“And a legend was born?” Dorian finished, with a smile.

 

“Exactly. And now I’m planning to star in a porno-pirates movie.”

 

Dorian faltered. “You’re going to be in the pirate film? The VT one?”

 

“Yep. I don’t think we’ll be in any of the same scenes, though; there’s a lot going on in this thing. Why?”

 

_ Bite the bullet _ , Dorian told himself.  _ You’ve been feeling awkward about it, and he’s being so nice. Best to get it out in the open. _

 

“Well, I may, ah, have had something of a crush on you. In the past. It makes the idea of appearing in something with you feel a tad strange.”

 

Bull grinned and leaned back in his chair. “Reeeeeally,” he crowed, clearly delighted.

 

“Oh Maker, why did I tell you that?”

 

“A crush?” Bull said, leering exaggeratedly. “On lil’ ol’ me?”

 

“I went through a very bad patch, around the time of my second attempt to come out” Dorian said with a sigh, “And I watched a lot of porn. You were a particular favourite of mine and I got a bit… moony over you.”

 

“Aw, that’s kinda sweet. I’m glad you told me,” Bull said. “Though honestly, it would have been hard to miss.”

 

“What!?”

 

“That day I met you, in the gym? You got a little starry eyed there. And not just in the usual ‘hey, maybe I’ll fuck a pornstar’ way. You’re fucking cute, Dorian. You know, it was pretty difficult to make myself ask you to audition, rather than hit on you.”

 

“You… you did both, really.” Dorian sputtered.

 

“Yeah. I guess I did. But hey, you know it’s all cool, right? You’re a good fit here, and if we ever decide you and me are going to do a scene together, we’ll figure it out so we both feel good about it.”

 

“Yes,” Dorian said with a sigh. “Thank you for this Bull. I actually feel rather lighter.” It was true as well, a little of the weight gone from his shoulders. “You’re very nice to talk to.”

 

Bull smiled at him warmly and rose to his feet. “You’re a good guy Dorian. I’m glad you’re here with us.” He opened the door and held it for Dorian to pass through. Dorian’s shoulder brushed against Bull’s chest as he left the room, and when his cheeks went warm again, he didn’t feel foolish. Just cheered. And justified.

 

If one had to have silly crushes, Bull was certainly a good target.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of chat, but I needed to get a few things down before I could write some of the more fun bits. Now the main characters know where each other are, I'm going to try and actually progress the plot of this thing a bit! Wooo!  
> (watch me fail!)
> 
> Also, sorry this chapter is a week late. I had a weekend away at a gaming convention, and between the prep for my game and a busy week at work, I just didn't have the energy to get it out on time. Thanks for being patient.


	12. Trials of Academia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian had prepared himself for this, the judgement and disdain. The fact that it was coming from somebody who already judged and disdained him actually made it easier to bear, like a practice run for the reaction of people he actually liked.

That evening, after putting in a couple of hours on his lesson plans and fending off an attempt by Sera to push his sofa out of the window after he’d let her in to watch his tv, Dorian logged into the charge website. The main page no longer featured his launch, but the wonderful toga photograph and the links to all his films were still on his own performer page, and his most recently released film, Clark Got Dumped, was in the top twenty of the websites’ ‘most viewed’ list still. He hoped the party piece did as well.

 

He clicked on the link and pulled the slider of the player along until he got to the point where he sank down on Garrett’s cock. The camera was switching between close ups on his and Garrett’s groins, wide views of them both on the sofa, and close ups on Dorian’s face, which he should have noticed before. He pulled the slider back a bit and watched carefully.

 

Did he make an unusual face?

 

He couldn’t quite tell. He was fairly sure it was the same expression he always made during sex. His eyelids fluttered, his brows arched together in the centre, his mouth fell open, his skin flushed a little darker.

 

He looked  _ good _ , no doubt about that...but was it that extraordinary?

 

Perhaps it was simply that the face itself was so attractive to start with, that the expression looked all the more remarkable.

 

That was probably it.

 

And he’d be a fool to play it down when it seemed to be contributing so much to his popularity.

 

He settled back in his seat to watch the rest of the movie, enjoying the view of the other two men, taking mental notes on his own performance, and found his thoughts straying to his conversation with Bull earlier.

 

He really did feel lighter. It wasn’t often he spoke so candidly to a person, and considering that he had known Bull for so little time, and that he still knew relatively little about him, he had felt perfectly comfortable with sharing so much. Something about Bull made him very easy to talk to. Perhaps his good nature, his bonhomie. It wasn’t that Dorian felt he could trust him, not exactly. But he felt like Bull wouldn’t harm him.

 

And, since Bull had been so pleasant about Dorian’s crush confession, Dorian felt he could now actually enjoy that feeling, the little smiley buzz he got whenever he was near the man. The feeling that he wasn’t just worthlessly spilling admiration out, that it was a worthwhile and accepted feeling.

 

He went to bed feeling remarkably serene, and thought about his new film until he fell asleep.

 

*

 

“That’s a good question,” Dorian said, his stock response for one of his students asking him about something they should have damn well known by now. He moved to the whiteboard that stood in the corner of the small room Wynne had for her seminars and wrote the word ‘Safety’ in the middle, with a circle drawn around it.

 

“The last time I did a brainstorming diagram like this, it was about the importance of wearing goggles and tying back hair when practising flame manipulation,” he mused, and the small group of students giggled. He turned back to them, gesturing to the board.

 

Coral shakily raised a hand. “C-condoms?” she said.

 

Dorian wrote that on the board.

 

“And dental dams,” said a qunari girl.

 

The good looking elven man at whom Coral kept glancing put up his hand and nervously offered, “Not, uh, being too drunk?”

 

“Hmm,” Dorian responded, drumming his fingers on a corner of the desk. “You know, I’m going to consider that as part of a larger topic,” and he turned to the board and wrote ‘Informed Consent’, underlining it several times.

 

“Now, do we all understand what this means?” he asked.

 

*

 

He saw them all off half an hour later, each with a handful of pamphlets from the campus health centre, and an entirely new impression of what sort of considerations went on at Charge! Studios. His new job gave him a wealth of examples to offer in order to illustrate his points, all more boring than his students had expected, he was sure.

 

Of course Coral had told her friends about their little chat, which he was somewhat cross with her about (and he dreaded to think about how many of them had known about his porn career  _ before  _ she’d said anything). However, it also brought home to him how little sexual education some of these young people had. He had learned most of what he knew through experimentation in the nightclubs and secret back rooms of Minrathous, of course, but that technique would have been tricky for anyone without his confidence, resilience, and excellent health care package. And of course, it was still rather a wonder that he had never been seriously harmed by… various incidents. As it was, a worrying number of young adults at this university seemed to have precious little real knowledge of what sex actually entailed, never mind how to go about it in a responsible way. That said, most of the ones in his little ad hoc lecture had come from old school Andrastrian households, and Dorian supposed that it was difficult to consider sex in a healthy way when you were brought to up believe that Andrastre would watch disapprovingly over the act, condemning you for enjoying the body her husband had supposedly provided for you..

 

He wiped the whiteboard clean  _ very  _ thoroughly (it wouldn’t do to shock Wynne after all) and locked up the office, thinking ahead to his visit to the library and the new section of research for his thesis that he needed to get started on, and turned around to find himself face to forehead with an angry egg.

 

“What were you doing? You don’t have a seminar scheduled.”

 

Dorian sidled out from between Professor Solas and Wynne’s office door. “Just a catch up session,” he said lightly. “Some of our students were struggling with the Entropic Theory unit, it happens every year I’m told.”

 

Solas gave him a scowl, an act that summed up easily half of the social interactions Dorian had ever shared with him. “How is your fade theory class going?” he asked pleasantly. “Full this year?”

 

Solas’ pet topic was never full, not with half the mages in the school terrified of possession and the other half mindful of that legendary near-disaster back in the Dragon age. Wynne’s Healing Magic classes, however, were standing room only, and the few lectures on Necromancy that Dorian had been allowed to give, thanks to the administration’s experimental interest in expanding their offering to the more advanced students, had been packed out.

 

Solas scowled at him harder. “I heard your career has taken some interesting swerves recently,” he said.

 

Dorian struggled to keep the carefree smile on his face. “Yes, Wynne and I are agreed that I can expect several more publications early next year and - oh, were you referring to something else?”

 

“Your second career,” Solas said quietly.

 

Dorian had prepared himself for this, the judgement and disdain. The fact that it was coming from somebody who already judged and disdained him actually made it easier to bear, like a practice run for the reaction of people he actually liked.

 

“Yes, well, those of us who do not yet have our doctorates need ways to earn our living while we toil away in the educational system,” he said smoothly. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that it’s a terrible decision, no doubt driven by my poor Magisterial morals and my weak superficial reasoning?”

 

Solas gave him a narrow look, and fell into step with Dorian as he began to make his way along the corridor. A long moment of silence followed - during which Dorian wondered if he would be able to dodge around the cubicle walls inside the library entrance quickly enough to shake Solas off - until Solas replied; “No.”

 

“No?”

 

“That’s not why I think it’s a terrible decision. The higher you go in academia, the more cut-throat the competition becomes. For tenure yes, but also simply for recognition, and for petty things like the approval of superiors. With something like that in your past, it gives your enemies all the more ammunition to use against you. You’ve made your future extremely challenging. And nobody seems to have warned you.”

 

There was a twist of annoyance in the last sentence that surprised Dorian. “I don’t believe I needed a warning. You realise I’m form a political family? And while I don’t have your past of ‘wandering the wilds’ I can assure you I’m not short of life experiences.”

 

From the corner of his eye, he perceived Solas staring at him with dislike mingled with curiosity. They were outside now, and Dorian began crossing the large quadrangle towards the ugly modernist edifice of the library. Solas cleared his throat.

 

“You aren’t my idea of a mage,” Solas said quietly, and Dorian snorted having heard it before, “But your studies are interesting and daring, and I would rather see your career succeed than fail for all that I dislike you personally. Be careful.”

 

Having dropped that conversational grenade, he turned on his heel and walked briskly away before Dorian could get in a riposte.

 

“You...you...ugh!” Dorian exclaimed, and stormed into the library like an invading force.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if you've ever played Sera's romantic route, but at the ending of the main game, after the fade to black in your bedroom, she says out of nowhere; "Let's throw the bed off the balcony!" I fucking love that line. So yeah, she had a little go at Dorian's sofa but the window was probably too small and he inteferred, so.
> 
> And I did my first playthrough as a qunari, so no matter how many people tell me that Solas is a deep and compassionate and loveable character I'm always going to be of the mind that he's a bit of a bellend, sorry folks.
> 
> I can't believe we all thought this was going to be a super porny story when it began, can you?


	13. Workaday World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a brief session of pleading with Wynne and a promise that he would type up her department meeting notes in his free time that evening, she agreed to let him have the day out of the office.
> 
> “Have fun with your internet films,” she told him as he left the evening before, that being the only way in which she now seemed comfortable referring to his porn career.

Much to their credit, the chargers did their best to fit shoots and other studio activities in around their performers’ schedules, and as such Dorian was very pleased to find they had placed an important meeting and the shoot of the virtual reality film on the same day for him. After a brief session of pleading with Wynne and a promise that he would type up her department meeting notes in his free time that evening, she agreed to let him have the day out of the office.

 

“Have fun with your internet films,” she told him as he left the evening before, that being the only way in which she now seemed comfortable referring to his porn career.

 

The cold weather was really settling in, and Dorian was glad, the following morning, to find the studio building far warmer than the university, or even his own apartment. Krem, it seemed, was not stingy with the heating.

 

Krem himself, along with Bull, were standing in the reception area talking to a man and a woman that Dorian didn’t recognise. He thought for a moment that they might be there to audition, both being rather good looking; the man athletic and handsome with nicely styled fair hair, the woman tall and vital with short dark hair and a rather stern face. However, the assessing look they both gave him as he approached the desk to sign in was telling; they were police, he was quite sure. He was, unfortunately, rather familiar with getting strange looks from the police.

 

“That’s Cassian Corso,” Krem said to the two. “One of our new faces. Also known as Dorian.”

 

“How do you do?” Dorian said politely, slipping off his coat and folding it over his forearm.

 

The woman frowned at him. “A Tevinter? What brings you here?”

 

Her accent was Nevarran and he had a momentary impulse to simply volley her rather rude question right back to her, but reined it in. “I’m in a PHD programme at the university,” he replied.

 

“Oh, very good,” the man said cheerfully, and came forward to offer his hand.

 

“This is Cullen Rutherford,” Bull said. “He works for the Skyhold Health and Safety Authority. Comes by every few weeks to make sure things are above board here.”

 

Dorian shook his hand politely. “What an interesting job that much be,” Dorian said, half-sarcastically. “I can’t imagine some of the things you must see.”

 

“Well, this is better than dealing with restaurants full of roaches,” Rutherford replied. “The Chargers run a tight ship.”

 

“Much to the disappointment of a number of local ‘moral’ citizens,” the woman said darkly.

 

“Detective Pentaghast,” Bull introduced her. “Another nuisance call?”

 

“Yes, unless you and your actors are performing orgiastic summonings of desire demons in your studio basement. In which case it’s genuine and we need to have words.”

 

Bull gave a bark of laughter. “We don’t have a basement, for a start,” he said.

 

“And you can’t actually summon a demon through an orgy,” Dorian added. “You’d need at least two people who were fully focussed on the spell, and-” he broke off as he became aware he was being stared at. 

“Not that I know anything about it beyond theory, of course,” he finished.

 

Rutherford chuckled, and Dorian decided that he rather liked him. A door opened, and he turned to see Ina Lavellan step out in her long pink fluffy bathrobe, fishnet stockings showing underneath it and a pair of intricately strappy high heels dangling from one hand. She saw their two guests and gave a little ‘oh!’ of surprise, then approached the group with a warm smile.

 

“How are you, Cullen?” she asked. “I missed you the last time you came by.”

 

Cullen sputtered a bit before answering, and Dorian noted a little pink in his cheeks, and the determination with which he was avoiding looking at Ina’s extremely eye-catching cleavage. He glanced at Bull, who met his gaze and rolled his eye, before turning his attention back to the Detective.

 

Krem gestured to Dorian to follow him and led him off towards the conference room, the sounds of legal discussion and shy flirting fading behind them as they left reception. 

 

“Looking forward to meeting ‘VT’?” Krem asked.

 

“Rather! Zevran was teasing me about them a bit. And I’ve enjoyed some of their films.” They passed into the seating area outside the conference room in time to see half a dozen men - all men who performed with other men, Dorian noted - drifting into the room ahead of them, along with a buxom dark haired woman who had been pointed out to Dorian as Isabela, who looked him up and down appreciatively as they went through the door.

 

Zevran was sitting on the far side of the large table, and Dorian moved to take the empty seat next to him, only to be brought up short by the surprise of seeing an unexpected familiar face.

 

“Maker! Varric Tethras! How stupid of me, of course I should have guessed,” he said happily, and stepped forward to shake Varric’s hand.

 

Varric looked as astonished as he was, and stepped forward with a happy cry of; “Sparkler! Does Mae know you’re here?”

 

Dorian laughed. “Of course. You know how she has her ways. What about you?”

 

Varric shrugged and rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck. “She has her suspicions. I very carefully complain about the Hard in Hightown parodies every time I see Thorold though.”

 

“Damn it all, you know each other?” Zevran demanded, and Dorian turned to him with a grin.

 

“Varric’s cousin is married to one of my best friends,” he explained. “We met at their wedding a few years ago. Sorry to disappoint you. Really though, I feel I should have worked it out.”

 

“Don’t feel bad,” Varric said, returning to his seat as Dorian moved past him to find his own chair. “Every now and then I get a touch of block, and writing these things sort of helps to clear it.”

 

Bull walked in at that moment, and Varric got up again to greet him (‘Tiny’), and the room settled down to discuss the script that Varric had brought with him. Copies were handed out and they were given a few minutes to look it over before Bull and Varric gave an overview.

 

It was very loosely based on a non-pornographic short story that Varric had written and never published early in his career. The main cast was the crew of a pirate ship, and over the course of the plot they captured a merchant vessel, had a couple of run ins with a naval ship that was hunting them, and discovered a group of sailors who had been marooned on an island. Dorian was, as Bull had told him, to play the merchant’s sex slave who was freed by Marit Adaar’s character and taken to join the pirate crew, Bull was to play the first mate who seduced Michel, the Captain of the navy ship, and Zevran and Anders were to play two pirate crew members who went ashore on the island to find the castaways. There was a lot of humour in it, not least in the sub-plot which featured Isabela as the pirate Captain, who was constantly trying to get one of her crew into bed only to be foiled by their focus on the other men. Eventually, as the final scene, she would be approached by the cabin boy, who would turn out to be a woman in disguise, to the surprise of everyone but the Captain. It was quite a complex plot, due to run as long as a feature film, with plenty of different sex scenes. The plot and casting settled, talk turned to the shooting schedule and the work on sets and costumes that needed to be done. Dorian listened eagerly, fascinated to hear it all coming together in a way he hadn’t been privy to before. A woman called Dagna was going to be called in to help figure out how to make the lighting work so they could shoot the island scenes indoors without making it look, as Bull put it, ‘like art installation in a shopping mall’. Krem produced a sheaf of sketches from their mysterious, unnamed costume designer, and Dorian caught a tantalising glimpse of the skimpy outfit he was to wear as a slave, and the very fetching sash-and-britches outfits for the male pirate crew. Rocky suggested taking apart a grand staircase piece they’d used for a set some time ago in order to make deck railings and a prow for the ship.

 

The meeting broke up after about two hours, when Tessa, dressed in a white polo shirt with a red ‘Get Wet’ logo embroidered on the breast, blue athletic shorts, rubber deck shoes, and a whistle on a lanyard, poked her head around the door and told Bull it was time to shoot the rest of their Ride the Bull piece. Bull got up and looked around the table.

 

“Everybody happy?” he asked, and was met by a variety of positive replies. He left with Tessa, and Dorian tried very hard not to feel envious of her.

 

Krem took charge of the meeting and they finished soon after, and Rocky announced that lunch should have been delivered. People mingled while Rocky got the platters of food from reception and set them out on the conference room table, then sat down to eat together, talking shop and gossip. Isabela sat with Dorian and Zevran and they exchanged flirts in between bites of sandwiches, until Stitches came over and interrupted them.

 

“Dorian, we’ve had a model drop out of the calendar. You want the spot?” he said bluntly. Dorian had to swallow his mouthful of food quickly so he could let his jaw drop open without being too vulgar. The Charge! Calendar was practically legendary! Every year it sold tens of thousands of copies, raising money for charities from abuse survivor’s shelters and legal aid for rape victims, to a website providing free, impartial sex education for teenagers. There were three editions; one featuring male models, one with female models, and one with a mixture of both. Dorian had been buying the male version every year since he was 19.

 

“I’d be delighted,” he replied. 

 

“Good, I think you’ll do nicely for Kingsway. The theme this year is ‘Before and After’, we’ll see what we can come up with for you,” Stitches said, and bustled off looking at his tablet, blissfully unaware that he had just given Dorian more pleasure than easily half of the men he’d slept with during his time in Minrathous.

 

Zevran hugged him around the shoulders, and Isabela took the opportunity to feel up his thigh. He was still jittery with excitement when Ina came in and helped herself to the spread of food, high heels replaced with house slippers, though she still had the fishnets on.

 

“That bloody Cullen,” she muttered, sitting next to them and cramming most of a ham sandwich into her mouth. 

 

“Oh darling, what did he do?” Isabela asked.

 

Ina let out a loud groan of frustration around her food, then struggled to swallow it before she spoke. “He flirts back, and sends all sorts of signals, but never says anything definite, or asks me out. Dating’s so fucking hard in this job! Do you think it scares him off? Do you think these scare him off?” She hefted her breasts up with both hands and glared down her nose at them.

 

Most of the people in the room rushed to reassure her that it was obviously Cullen’s problem if this was the case, and that she was wonderful, which seemed to cheer her a bit. Then Grim stepped into the room, got Dorian’s attention with a wave, and left again.

 

“If you’ll all excuse me,” Dorian announced getting to his feet, “I’m off to get fucked by a man in 70 pounds of wearable camera equipment.”

 

He said his goodbyes to Varric and a few voices wished him luck as he went out the door. Not ten minutes later he was done with makeup and was following Grim through the winding corridors to the room set up for the virtual reality shoot. He was simply made up this time, wearing a dressing gown that was actually his outfit for the film, a handsome silk kimono in black and cerise. They entered the set to find Cullen Rutherford chatting amiably with Carver, and Dorian overheard enough to deduce that they had both spent time in the military, which was rather interesting.

 

Grim gathered up Carver without a word and the two of them set about taking a great deal of equipment out of padded cases and piling it on to the person of a swarthy young man whom Dorian had been told was called Rylen. Cullen stood watching the process with benign interest and Dorian wandered over to him, the beginnings of an idea forming in his mind.

 

“How do you find the studio?” Cullen asked him pleasantly, and Dorian wondered if he was collecting information for his reports, or simply asking out of hearty Fereldan niceness. 

 

“It’s a very good place to work,” Dorian replied. “Admirably well organised and supportive. Management’s commitment to everybody’s wellbeing almost feels too good to be true.”

 

Cullen grinned. “I thought that the first time I came here. I was in a Vice department in the Free Marches for years before I came here, this place is a breath of fresh air.”

 

Dorian nodded and leaned back against the wall next to Cullen. He shifted a little, so the heavy silk of the kimono spread open around his shoulders, showing off his upper chest. Giving it his best ‘look how handsome I am’ pose, he cleared his throat and, when Cullen looked at his face, locked eyes with him. 

 

“About Ina Lavellan,” Dorian said.

 

“Yes?”

 

“She’s a lovely woman, is she not?”

 

Cullen nodded readily. “Absolutely.” His cheeks went a tad pink again.

 

Dorian smiled. “I’m awfully fond of her. She in turn is fond of you, but you don’t seem inclined to do anything about it, so I thought I’d offer my take on the situation; If you don’t ask her out, I will.”

 

Cullen gave him a tight lipped, thoughtful stare, weighing him up quietly. Then, with a stiff nod and yet more colour in his cheeks, he murmured a goodbye and left the room.

 

Dorian turned to find Grim glaring at him.

 

“What?” he responded. “I didn’t say I was going to ask her on a date, did I? I was planning on seeing if she wanted to get manicures.”

 

Grim rolled his eyes, and made a weary, complex gesture that Dorian interpreted as asking him if he was ready. He approached the set, another iteration of an apartment bedroom, and exchanged hellos with Rylen, who was now naked except for his bizarre camera get-up and a bright green opaque condom.

 

“Why the rubber?” Dorian asked. “I gave consent for bareback for this one.”

 

Grim looked to Carver, who replied; “It’s so the person watching it doesn’t lose the feeling of immersion if they see you being fucked by a cock that doesn’t look like theirs. That’s the idea, anyway.”

 

“So it can look like you’re being fucked by a radioactive mutant instead,” Rylen added, giving the member in question a little waggle.

 

Grim grunted at them and shooed them into position. It took a few minutes to make sure all the cameras were working and synchronising together as they were meant to, then Carver gave Dorian his queue and Dorian went for it.

 

His brief for this was simple; show the viewer the time of their lives.

 

“Darling,” he purred richly, gazing deep into the lens that he’d been told would be equivalent the viewer’s eyeline. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been  _ awfully  _ lonely.”

 

He reached out a hand and led Rylen to the bed, slipping sinuously out of the dressing gown on his way, and laid himself out on the bed, caressing himself, showing off his body for the many little cameras. He raised his knees and began to work himself open with the fingers of one hand, while gently stroking Rylen’s cock with the other.

 

“Darling, you’re so sexy,” he murmured. “You make me feel so lucky. You’ll take good care of me, won’t you? I’m  _ hungry  _ for you.”

 

He heard Rylen gulp, and decided that this film was going to be a huge success.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was only when I got to the end of writing this chapter that I realised Dorian is completely settled into his new job now. Fortunately, he's still finding it rather exciting.  
> And yes, VT was who you thought it was :D Poor Zevran, he was so looking forward to shock and exclamations.


	14. An Expedition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This is sad,” Stitches said.
> 
> “I’m going to grab their heads and mash their fucking faces together,” Skinner growled.

“This is… surreal,” Dorian said, adjusting the position of the headset slightly.

 

“Right?” Garrett replied from somewhere to his left. “And I’ve actually fucked you in real life. I can’t imagine how weird it must be for you.”

 

Dorian tilted his head downwards and looked at Rylen’s green cock sticking out from where his own should be. “It might be less weird if I were actually using it as intended…” he suggested.

 

“Krem says they’re thinking of buying the rights to a design of fleshlight to ship with it, like a limited edition,” Carver said. “Though they might release a video - or rather, this one and Isabela’s version - first to see how well received they are.”

 

Dorian nodded, then shuddered when the motion gave him a very odd view of himself as Rylen’s cock disappeared into him. Though… he  _ did  _ make rather a good face, didn’t he. And, as he had always suspected, his thighs looked amazing in that position.

 

“Do they think it’s going to be popular?” he made himself ask. “It’s such an odd idea.”

 

“It’ll do well” Garrett replied, at exactly the same time as Carver said “Bull thinks it’ll go okay.”

Dorian could  _ hear  _ the glare they gave each other. He took the headset off and handed it back to Carver, still feeling uncertain. 

 

“However it goes, it’s worth trying,” Carver told him, unplugging something and nudging a switch on something else.

 

“And you and Isabela both have a good fan base,” Garrett added. “So, between both your fans, the tech nerds who want to try it out for the novelty, and the pervs who want to hook their dick up to a computer, we’ll sell plenty of copies. Pretty sure.”

 

“...Great,” said Dorian.

 

“You have no business calling anybody else a pervert,” Carver said to his brother.

 

“Jealous.”

 

“Arrested twice.”

 

“And never imprisoned.”

 

“Only because Bethany called in favours.”

 

“You’ve never met your boyfriend in person.”

 

“He’s! In! Minrathous!” Carver snapped, finally goaded into raising his voice. 

 

“I have to run, photoshoot you know,” Dorian said quickly, and slipped out of the room before the argument could develop further. Closing the door behind him, he wondered if he should fetch some help to break them up. But Anders had told him about the way the Hawke brothers fought, and that the best thing to do was to let them get it out of their respective systems. Carver especially.

 

It was the day of the photoshoot for the calendar, as well as being only a week and a half from the end of the semester for Satinalia, and a month until the calendar would be released in time for First Day. It was starting to feel festive, with decorations creeping in around both the university and the studios; Wynne had had Dorian set up the little plastic tree in her office the day before, and the reception desk at the studio was decked with holly garlands.

 

Dorian set off to the make up room, where Dalish was waiting for him with a very promising looking suit in a dry cleaning bag, and little bundle of purple lace. He complimented her on the tinsel she had strung around the mirrors while she did his makeup, and followed her instructions to put on the tiny lacy thong and garter top stockings. Finally, she handed him a bathrobe and the suit and gave him directions to one of the smaller stages where the shoot was being set up.

 

Dorian walked through the corridors of the studio, greeting people here and there, admiring the cheesy festive decorations that somebody had hung on most of the doors, when the door to the ladies bathroom opened and Ina stepped out. She took one look at Dorian, grinned like a shark, and grabbed him violently by both lapels of his robe.

 

“Date night tonight!” she squeaked excitedly.

 

“With Cullen? Maker!” Dorian cried and gave her a quick hug. She looped her arm through his and they set off for the sound stage together.

 

“He asked me for my phone number the last time he was here for an inspection,” she explained, and Dorian mentally patted himself on the back. “He went so red in the face I thought he was going to pass out, but we both survived and he called me and asked me out!”

 

“Marvellous!” Dorian said.

 

“And he let me talk to his dog over the phone too!”

 

“Uh…” said Dorian.

 

“I love dogs!”

 

“Oh, just as well.”

 

“So we’re going to dinner, but I wanted to talk to you about clothes. You’re always so nicely dressed; do you know a good tailor? Like, for alterations?”

 

Dorian considered. The man he’d taken his suit jacket to worked on women’s clothes as well, he seemed to recall.

“What exactly do you want altering?”

 

She thought for a moment, then gave a sigh and shrugged. “I don't know, really. I’ve not been on a real date in ages. Most of my clothes are either the slobby stuff I wear at home, or sort of… tits ahoy, you know?”

 

Dorian cracked up laughing so hard that she smacked him on the arm, and smacked him again when he saluted her bosom, but when he calmed down the annoyance subsided and she looked genuinely worried. 

 

“Shall we go shopping together when I’m done with my shoot?” Dorian asked. “I’m sure we can find something that falls nicely into the middle ground.”

 

“That’d be great,” Ina replied brightly. She stretched up to kiss his cheek. 

 

She saw him off into the stage, one of several smaller rooms, and one that was permanently painted and carpeted to look like an ordinary room in an apartment. It had now been set up with a large wardrobe, a bed piled with cushions, a standing mirror, and various other furnishings to make it look like a particularly over-decorated but otherwise ordinary bedroom. Charter greeted Dorian pleasantly and went over the details with him.

 

In the interest of the year’s calendar theme of ‘Before and After’, Dorian’s month would show two photos of him, one of him getting ready for a date, and one having brought his date home. For the first photo, Dorian posed in only the thong and stockings, standing before the open wardrobe, and holding two shirts on hangers consideringly, while the suit lay spread on the bed behind him. Charter showed him the pictures, which looked rather charming, then asked him to put the suit on over the underwear and get an erection.

 

Dorian had been a little worried about working with a woman, but Charter’s no nonsense attitude was quite easy to deal with, and he found himself quite at ease as she posed him on his back on the bed and messed with his clothes and the position of his limbs. He ended up with his shirt undone, tie pulled lose and jacket spread out underneath him. His trousers were also unfastened and pulled down just enough to show the tops of his stockings and the little thong that was stretched all out of shape by his cock. Charter had set the camera up to shoot from above the bed, the POV of Dorian’s lover, and he writhed and arched and made bedroom eyes for all he was worth as the shutter snapped over and over again. 

 

Charter thanked him when they were done and waved him off while staring distractedly at the photos on her laptop. Dorian returned to the make-up room to drop off the suit and got back into his own clothes in the changing room next door. When he exited, Ina was waiting, already in her coat and vibrating with excitement.

 

“Have you changed your mind about going shopping?” he asked insouciantly, and she growled at him.

 

They set off, but Ina stopped abruptly just before they reached reception and pointed down a corridor. Dorian turned to see several of the Chargers making their way into the little sound booth attached to one of the larger stages, all of them looking quite furtive.

 

“Something juicy’s happening,” Ina whispered, and followed after them, dragging Dorian along. They made it into the sound booth just before Grim could pull the door closed, and Ina crammed herself insistently into a tiny gap at the window that overlooked the studios.

 

“What’s happening?” Dorian whispered.

 

Stitches leaned close to him and hissed into his ear; “Krem’s just gone in there. Maryden was doing some checks with the acoustics or something.”

 

“Oh! Might he gird his loins to ask her out?”

 

He was answered with dead silence.

 

“Well… might he continue to  _ not  _ ask her out?”

 

“Probably,” Rocky muttered.

 

“It’s okay, they can’t see or hear us in here,” Dalish murmured, and everyone crowded to the window, craning their necks.

 

Krem was nodding a little too hard at whatever Maryden was telling him, slightly wild about the eyes as he fumbled a clipboard around in his hands.

 

Rocky examined the console and flipped a switch, and they could suddenly hear the conversation as if they were right there in the room. 

 

“-offset the effect of the concrete on the timbre, I thought about using some fabric screens. Do you want to listen to the recordings from my first test?”

 

“Yeah! Sure. Uh, yeah,” Krem said, absolutely none of his usual self assurance in evidence.

 

Maryden continued to rattle on about her acoustic experiments while she got out her laptop and hunted through the files. Krem stood by awkwardly, trying to add to the conversation, alternating between fidgeting and casting longing looks at Maryden’s face while she was looking elsewhere.

 

“This is sad,” Stitches said.

 

“I’m going to grab their heads and mash their fucking faces together,” Skinner growled.

 

“I read this thing about ginger,” Rocky said, drumming his fingers on the console. “Like, if you put it up a horse’s butt, the horse acts more confident and energetic, and-”

 

“If you try and put ginger up Krem’s butt, you’ll lose teeth for sure,” Stitches interjected, and Ina, Dorian and Dalish all creased up laughing.

 

Krem glanced sharply up at the booth window, eyes narrowing.

 

“Shit,” Skinner hissed, and shoved herself through the crowd to get to the door. The rest of them followed her out, and Dorian and Ina were walking arm in arm along the corridor like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths by the time Krem slammed out of the stage and looked around suspiciously. 

 

Ina and Dorian just kept walking.

 

*

 

The store had very considerately placed what the assistant called a ‘husband bench’ near the ladies’ fitting rooms, and Dorian was quite glad of the fact, having been shopping for nearly three hours by this point. He loved clothes shopping normally, albeit that his more recent activities had mostly been window shopping. Today, however, despite his best efforts, Ina still had yet to find a suitable dress for her date, and Dorian’s feet hurt.

 

They still had a decent amount of time before Ina had to be ready, especially as Cullen was picking her up from her house, but he was starting to get worried. Every dress that fitted her bust well without grossly exaggerating it was too baggy on the rest of her frame, while dresses that fitted around her waist and hips tended to leave her breasts sort of oozing out of the neckline. Or the arm holes. Or simply squashed them underneath her armpits. Elvish ladies with M-cups were not well catered for by the clothing shops of Skyhold.

 

Relaxing back onto the padded bench, Dorian sighed deeply. He was half tempted to give her one of his white shirts and a belt and see what they could make out of that. She’d look cute in it at least.

 

While he was turning over this idea, he became aware that he was being watched. A middle aged human man was peeping almost cartoonishly at him around a display of coats. As soon as Dorian turned his head to look at him, he flinched and pretended to be examining coat buttons. Dorian thought about the stories he’d heard from other performers about stalkers and felt a little shiver. He turned away then looked again to find the man’s eyes back on him. He’d definitely recognised him, Dorian was certain.

 

“Well?” Ina said, breaking into his worry, and Dorian turned to see her wearing… well, it was perfect. They’d found a little Empire-line cocktail dress with ruches along the bust line. It hadn’t looked like much on the hanger, but now it was on Ina it looked lovely.

 

“You look wonderful!” Dorian gushed getting to his feet.

 

“Not too ‘Hello, good evening, and welcome to my boobs’, is it?” Ina asked, smoothing the skirt around her hips.

 

“Not in the least! You look as pretty as a picture,” and he took her hand and tugged her gently into a giggling pirouette. “Cullen will think he’s the luckiest man alive.”

 

“Well, he’d better,” she said. “We had a ‘date with a porn star’ auction for charity a few years ago and I made 40 grand for the Skyhold Family Planning Clinic single handed.”

 

“Really?” 

 

“It was this guy from some old Orlesian family, kind of an ass. He was very unimpressed that Grim came along as chaperone.”

 

They had a little snigger at that, and Ina went back into the fitting room to change into her regular clothes. Dorian stretched his legs, glad that she had her car and could drop him at his place on her way home. He’d forgotten about the man who’d been staring at him, until the moment he felt a touch to his hand and, a second later, found a slip of paper being pushed into his palm. He turned to see the middle aged man from before power walking away across the shop floor, glancing back at him nervously every few yards.

 

Dorian looked at the paper in his hand with trepidation, feeling that chill again, his whole body tightening with tension. The roof of his mouth went dry.

 

A touch on his arm made him jolt, but it was just Ina, back in her sweater and jeans and carrying the dress over one arm.

 

“You okay?” she asked.

 

“Um… a man just handed me this and rushed away. He’d been watching me.”

 

She frowned. “Like, recognised you?”

 

Dorian nodded. Ina glanced around, then set her shoulders and pulled the paper out of his hand. She unfolded it, scowling, and read what was written on it. Her expression softened.

 

“It’s okay,” she said, and handed it back to him. “I don’t think he’s a wrong ‘un.”

 

Dorian smoothed out the paper and read the note.

 

“Dear Cassian,

You are really beautiful and I am a big fan. Not just because you are hot, but I like the way your personality is in your films too. It makes me wonder what you are like in real life. I am too shy to flirt with men usually, but I’ll try and be braver. Next time I see you I’ll try and be brave enough to say hello and tell you I think you are gorgeous in person.

Peter.”

 

“Oh,” Dorian said, not quite sure what to do with that.

 

“Did you think he was a stalker or something?”

 

“Yes,” Dorian sighed. “Probably paranoid of me.”

 

“No, no. It’s sensible to be a bit wary. It’s been stalkers or gropers or creepy flirters that don’t want to take no for an answer  _ way  _ more often than it’s anything nice.”

 

Dorian looked at the note again. It  _ was  _ nice, he decided. He hoped Chuck would get over his shyness enough to flirt with somebody, somebody who liked him. He thought about Krem, and hoped the same for him.

 

Ina snatched the note from him and, grinning, pushed it into his coat pocket, then led him over to the cash desk so she could pay for her dress.

 

*

 

“Will you put your arm around me?” Ina asked Dorian as they made their way through the busy shopping street towards the parking lot. Dorian immediately acquiesced, draping an arm around her shoulders.

 

“Are you cold?” he asked.

 

“No, just sick of getting ogled. Men gawp at me less when they think another man already has a claim on me.”

 

“Ugh. Straight men are revolting.”

 

“Mm. I hope Cullen is as nice as he seems.” She gave a happy sigh. “I’m really looking forward to tonight. It’s really been far too long since I went on a date.”

 

“How long has it been?” Dorian asked.

 

“About… three years?”

 

“Maker, really?”

 

She laughed. “There’s no need to sound so surprised, Dorian. Honestly, our work doesn’t make it easy. Nearly all of the men I’ve dated since I’ve been doing this work have either been scared off by my job, or made assumptions about me because of it, or got jealous over it, or… ugh, stupid things. There are so few people who you can really make it work with, you know? It’s hard. Have you dated much since you started?”

 

“No… but then, I wasn’t dating much before…” Everything she had said sounded horribly convincing. And it wasn’t that he was desperate to be in a relationship right now, but what would it mean for the future? He’d always had a little romantic streak in him, after all. He didn’t want it to wither. He liked his romantic streak, no matter that it had made a fool of him more than once.

 

Ina looked up at his face and must have been able to read his change in mood from his expression. She jostled him gently with her elbow.

 

“Sex messes everybody up, at least a little. When you work in it, it’s like you take a little step away from the normal world, you know? It makes some things more difficult, sure. But not impossible. We just have to take into account how fucked up everybody is.”

 

Dorian gave her a weak smile. “‘Sex fucks us all up’?” he quoted. “Words to live by.”

 

She snuggled into his side and reached up to pat the hand that was draped over her shoulder. “It’s true,” she said. “It’s where everybody puts their hang ups and fears, even if they don’t realise it. Well, except Bull.”

 

“Bull?”

 

“I’ve never met anyone with such a healthy attitude to sex. That’s where it all comes from, you realise, all the care that goes into Charge!. I wonder if it has anything to do with his dating history.”

 

Dorian felt a little twinge of discomfort. Did he want to hear about Bull’s romantic past?

 

What the fuck, of course he did.

 

“What dating history?” he asked.

 

Ina shrugged. “I’ve known him for nearly eight years, and in all that time he’s never been on a date. Hook ups, yes, but nothing romantic. And yet he gets teared up watching soppy movies, and reads every trashy romance novel that can find in the library.”

 

Dorian found his mouth going dry again. Did Bull not want love? Had he never felt the drive to pursue it? It might be wishful thinking… but that didn’t seem to fit, somehow.

 

They got into Ina’s car in silence and drove away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we go, a week late again and I'm sorry to have kept people waiting. Thank you for being patient!  
> The calendar photos are another thing that, if anyone is into art, wouldn't say no to, you know? Just putting it out there...  
> The pain of shopping with giant boobs is one I have experienced second hand through various members of my family who both deride and envy my nicely moderate C-cups.  
> And moder!AU Cullen Rutherford is absolutely the sort of man who would hold the phone up and tell his dog to say hello to whoever he was talking to. I won't hear any arguments on this. None.


	15. Pookie and Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a bunch of grown adults sitting on the floor, playing board games and waiting for text messages from somebody who is actually out socialising like... a grown adult.

Dorian opened the door of his apartment to be met by Sera’s hand, which shot out as fast as a viper to grip him tightly by the chin.

 

“I found the  _ best fucking bar _ -” she began eagerly, only to lose the thread of her thought when she spotted who else was in the apartment, and let go of his face to peer around him. Dorian cleared his throat.

 

“Golni, Reece,” he said. “This is Sera, my neighbour. Sera, these are two of my colleagues.”

 

Grinning brightly, Sera pushed past him with a cry of “Come on, Beardo,” at which point Dorian realised that she was not alone. The man with her, who gave Dorian a narrow look as Sera dragged him through the door, was called either Tom or Gordon, Sera using both names interchangeably, and the only thing he and Dorian had in common was a befuddled fondness for the elf now making herself at home on Dorian’s living room rug.

 

Golni and Reece, settled on either side of the game board set up on the floor, smiled welcomingly as Sera yanked Tom/Gordon down beside her. “We’ll start the game again,” Reece said pleasantly, sweeping the pieces off the board. While he started explaining the rules over again and got people picking out characters, Dorian stepped into the kitchenette and got some more mugs down. Tom/Gordon’s gaze followed him, as did his not-as-attractive-as-it-sounded lumberjack odour. When Dorian returned to the group with coffees, they were ready to get started again.

 

“You done this place up or something?” Sera asked, looking around the small studio.

 

“A little,” Dorian replied. He wasn’t allowed to make any real changes to the place, like painting or replacing the flooring. He had however used some of his new disposable income to freshen things up in a more modest way; new loose covers for the sofa, a mattress that wasn’t 80% lump, a better rug, and most satisfyingly a very smart folding screen he’d found in a junk shop, wood with painted canvas panels, which he had used to separate the living room from his bed. It was so much nicer to entertain when one wasn’t effectively inviting one’s guests into one’s bedroom every time.

 

“Places everyone,” Reece said firmly, and took a card off the top of one of the confusingly numerous decks arranged around the edges of the space-ship themed board. Everyone attempted to concentrate.

 

*

 

“Do you meet up for this a lot, then?” Sera asked some time later. They had successfully fought off several aliens, had repaired their space ship’s interstellar drive by one sixth, and were now rushing to repair the shields before another alien ship attacked.

 

“No, but we should,” Reece replied. “I’ve tons of board games I hardly ever get to play.”

 

“We wanted to be together tonight, though,” Golni said portentously.

 

Sera looked at her a touch warily and Dorian took it upon himself to explain; “Our friend Ina is out on a date that she’s very excited about and she promised to text us to let us know how it’s going. But we didn’t want her to take too much time out of her evening, and she doesn’t like group texts for some reason, so we said we’d all hang out together and pass the messages between us.”

 

“And gossip,” added Golni.

 

“And possibly bitch,” Reece noted.

 

Almost as he said it, Reece’s phone buzzed and he, Golni and Sera simultaneously leapt on it, Reece coming out the victor by dint only of the fact that it had been in his pocket.

 

“‘He looks ever so handsome. His car smells good, that’s a positive sign right?’” Reece read out.

 

“Cullen could hardly look anything other than handsome,” Golni sighed.

 

“Do you think he’s one of those people who would fuck their car if it had a suitable hole?” Reece said with frowning suspicion. “You know the sort I mean.”

 

“He has a dog,” Dorian offered. “Maybe he used air fresheners or something to get the dog smell out of the seats.”

 

“What sort of dog?” Tom/Gordon asked, the least aggressive thing he had ever said to Dorian.

 

“A poodle mabari cross,” Dorian said.

 

“It’s called a poobari,” Golni reminded him.

 

“We don’t use that word,” Reece said with a wince. “Besides, it’s called Chuck.”

 

*

 

“Entropy is common to both the processes of death, and those of nonorganic matters, right?” Dorian said, hopping his little commander character across the board. Reece pointed him agitatedly to the deck of blue cards, and Dorian picked one up without really knowing why.

 

“Uh, I guess?” Sera said hesitantly. She glanced to Golni for help, but got only a confused head shake. Dorian was quite sure that Golni would have been able to follow along if only they hadn’t started on the cider.

 

“Biological processes lose energy and decay in systemic quality, and so do non-biological processes. Like skin cells losing their elasticity and becoming wrinkled, or metal decaying with exposure. You can compare the two and study how they cross over, with consideration of things that cross into both fields, like lyrium. Right?”

 

“I didn’t even understand stuff like this when I was in the circle,” Reece complained, fiddling with the little row of torpedoes. “Does anybody have any red things? I’ve got a hand of orange but I need some reds.”

 

“I’ll swap you some my next turn,” Dorian told him. “But yes, I’m studying entropy of the systems of spiritual existence, by studying the way in which spirits of different ages respond to different stimuli, and also applying theories of chronomancy to extrapolate the practical experiments into further breadth.”

 

“You lost me at ‘systatic’,” Sera said.

 

“Systemic,” Dorian corrected.

 

“Piss wanks,” Sera retorted, and Dorian wondered why she had even asked him about his thesis in the first place.

 

Golni’s phone buzzed and she snatched it out of her pocket before Reece could go for it.

 

“‘We went to the circus! I’ve not been in years and I loved it. There was this fantastic magician and a contortionist. Cullen won me a cuddly fennec at the shooting range on the midway, and I got us free ice cream tokens on the test your strength machine. We’re going to walk off the ice creams before we go to dinner.’”

 

“That’s a nice date idea,” Golni opined once she had finished reading it out.

 

“How on earth did Ina beat a strength machine?” Dorian asked. “She’s dainty.”

 

“Lots of muscle though,” Reece said. “She does loads of strength training, just has to be careful not to bulk up. Skinner used to coach her. She says she has to do it, or the ‘girls’ would bend her back out of shape.”

 

“Nice,” said Tom/Gordon unexpectedly, and repaired the interstellar drive a bit more.

 

*

 

“You two aren’t from the university, are you,” Sera said slowly, after a while.

 

“My other job,” Dorian said pointedly, wondering if she really thought he discussed pubic grooming as much with his academic colleagues as he had been with Reece only minutes earlier.

 

“Dorian does porn now,” Sera stage whispered to Tom/Gordon, who turned pink and seemed to be attempting to recede for safety into his own beard. Golni said ‘aw’ and reached out a hand to scruff him under the chin.

 

“Yeah, Dorian does all the porn,” Reece said distractedly, neatening the piles of cards for about the fiftieth time. They almost had the interstellar drive repaired, but the last few turns had bombarded the ship with alien soldiers, and all of them had had to spend a bit too much time in the infirmary section of the board.

 

“So is Ina a porn star too?” Sera asked.

 

“She works under the name ‘Titalia Grande’,” Golni said.

 

Sera sat bolt upright, eyes gleaming. “The one with the huge ditties?!”

 

“That’s the one.”

 

“Don’t say anything like that if you meet her,” Dorian warned. “She’s a lovely woman.”

 

“She always says that’s why she signed up with Charge! long term,” said Golni. “She told me once that Bull was the first boss she had who really saw the woman behind the tits.”

 

“ _ Way _ behind!”

 

“ _ Thank _ you Sera.”

 

Dorian’s phone buzzed this time, and he had to push Reece away with his foot to read it.

 

“‘Smashing restaurant, they made this stir fry thing right at our table and it’s delicious. Cullen is so sweet, I taught him to use chopsticks properly and he’s really happy about it.’”

 

“She had to teach a grown man to use cutlery and she thinks it’s sweet?” Reece said a bit sourly.

 

Golni frowned at him. “The last time you were given a steak knife you almost cut your fucking thumb off,” she said. “Stop being so overprotective.”

 

Reece stuck out his bottom lip at her and she huffed a laugh and pretended to punch him in the face.

 

*

 

It was almost midnight, all the cider was gone, the chips and popcorn Golni had brought were reduced to crumbs, and they had finally -  _ finally _ \- repaired the fucking interstellar drive.

 

“Yay! Going to space!” Sera yelled, and flipped the board, making everybody laugh and cheer with the exception of Reece who rushed to gather up all of the little cards.

 

“I think we were already in space,” Tom/Gordon pointed out, and she turned to him with a confused expression.

 

Golni’s phone pinged and this time they were all too sleepy to rush her for it. She read it out;

 

“‘Really lovely night. He dropped me home and we had a little kiss on the doorstep. Very tasty, and he didn’t try to grab at me or anything. We’re going out again at the weekend. I have to get tickets for something interesting.’”

 

“The university’s holding a film festival,” Dorian suggested.

 

“Ooh, tell her about that,” Reece said, his final syllable disappearing into a yawn.

 

“Well, that’s a good end to a good evening,” Golni sighed, getting to her feet and smoothing out her skirt. “Thanks Dorian, me and Reece’ll get out of your hair now.”

 

“Can’t move,” Sera gurgled from the spot on the floor where she’d been propped diagonally against a stack of throw pillows for the last half hour.

 

“I’ll take her home,” Tom/Gordon said to nobody in particular, and went to help her up, only for Sera to latch onto his hair with both hands and start noisily demanding piggyback rides. To Dorian’s surprise, he just laughed and hauled her easily onto his back, offering Dorian a gruff word of thanks as he carted her off out the door.

 

Reece and Golni watched him leave.

 

“Do you think he’d be interested in some work?” Golni asked Dorian.

 

“Him?!”

 

Reece nodded. “Bull said he was looking for some less clean cut types. I bet he could be really popular, if he actually managed to express a bit.”

 

“Well,  _ you _ can ask him about it,” Dorian said. “This evening marks the first exchange I’ve ever had with him that didn’t end in insults and threats.”

 

“Well…that’s something,” Golni said with her typical cheer.

 

She helped him take all the glasses and bowls into the kitchenette and dried while Dorian washed, while Reece occupied himself with carefully putting all the odds and ends of his game back into their special little apertures in the box. It was only after he’d said goodnight to them both and started getting ready for bed that Dorian looked at his phone and saw he had another text.

 

‘Cullen complimented me on my dress twice, and I felt really good in it all night. Thank you pookie!”

 

Pookie? Dorian had never been ‘Pookie’ in his life. He immediately decided that Felix must never find out, lest he be known as such forever. As he laid his phone down, it buzzed again, and he picked it up to see an unfamiliar number.

 

‘Hey, did Ina tell you if her date went well? I don’t want to disturb her, but I know she usually tells somebody everything.’

 

Dorian frowned at it, when another text came in;

 

‘It’s Bull by the way.’

 

Oh. How did Bull get his number? Did somebody give it to him? Or did he get it from the files at the office? He didn’t really mind, but… well, it had surprised him a little.

 

‘She had a great time, Cullen sounds like a real gentleman.’

 

‘Awesome .)’ came Bull’s reply, and Dorian, sleepy and tipsy, had to stare at the emoji for a minute until it made sense.

 

He went to bed with a smile on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't figure out how else to get Blackwall in there, so here he is.  
> Certain of the dialogue was loosely based on this party banter; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP4pvpFYtf4  
> And the game they are playing is called 'The Captain is Dead' and it's awesome!  
> Oh, and the idea of a poobari has been going around in my head for ages now and I love it. I love Chuck!


	16. Best Laid Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A party is arranged, a secret is uncovered, and a colleague is lent a helping hand. All in a day's work for Cassian Corso.

_ What are you doing for Satinalia? _

Dorian stared at the text with a sinking feeling. Term was over, the students almost all gone away to spend the holiday with their families. Wynne had had Dorian help her make a list of everything she needed to pack for her stay with her sister, Sera was on a trip with some of her mysterious friends, and Dorian was in his apartment. Alone.

He hadn’t planned anything, though he probably could have joined in with one of his friends’ plans if he’d asked. But spending time with another group always made him miss… things he didn’t want to miss.

The phone buzzed again, another text popping up, this one from Zevran too.

_ I don’t mean to pry of course, but I remembered you wouldn’t be going home to family. _

Dorian snorted. Zevran could be tactful when he set his mind to it.

_ I’ve no plans at all actually. I’m just going to be dull on my own,  _ he wrote back _. _

_ You couldn’t be dull if you tried. A few of us waifs and strays usually get together for a late lunch in the afternoon. Lunch and then many many drinks. I’m hosting this year. You’d be welcome to join in. _

Waifs and strays? There were a lot of people who were rather adrift in the company, Dorian supposed. Before he could overthink it, he sent his reply.

_ That sounds like fun. Can I bring anything? _

_ Drinks, my dear fellow! _ Zevran sent, and a follow up message gave Dorian his address and a screenshot of an e-vite, which appeared to have originally been sent out at least a month ago, before he and Zevran had decided they were friends.

So, Dorian had plans. The little sour crumpling feeling in his stomach whenever he thought about the upcoming holiday was being nicely overwhelmed by flickers of anticipation. He had a feeling Zevran would host a spectacular party.

He decided to phone Felix, who would no doubt be worrying about him.

“Hello darling!”

“Dory! So nice to hear from you! Are you done for the term?”

“More or less. I’ve some of my lab work to sort out over the break, and a film to record,” Dorian said, having long since decided that never mentioning the tricky topic of his part time job to Felix would only make him worry more. “What about you?”

“I set a project too close to the end of term, and now I have to mark it over the holidays,” Felix replied with a dramatically sad sigh. “Dad offered to help with it, but I’d have to teach him about combinatorics before he could do anything, and I think that would take until summer.”

Dorian laughed. “Oh, I got my gift from you, by the way,” he remembered. “Thank you. It’s intriguingly weirdly shaped, I look forward to opening it.”

Felix chuckled. “I got yours too, came yesterday. Your fake name on the delivery slip was particularly enjoyable this time. How did you come up with ‘Solarse Crevisse-Chinne’?”

“Oh, I was just ranting to my neighbour about a colleague and it sort of… happened. By the way, you know how you’ve been so worried about me spending Satinalia on my own?”

“I, um… haven’t?”

“Felix…”

“Ugh! Okay, I was crying on the phone to Mae last night. But Dorian, you enjoyed the parties so  _ much  _ when we were teenagers, and-”

“It’s okay!” Dorian interrupted. “I have plans. A friend from work invited me to his party. He knows a lot of people who don’t have families, or can’t go and see them, and they all get together. It sounds fun.”

“Really?” Felix said, voice brimming with emotion.

“Really,” Dorian assured him. “So you and your father and all of your scary Aunts can have a lovely time without worrying about me.”

“The Aunts aren’t scary, Dorian. They’re just… um…”

Dorian took mercy and changed the topic to something safer, before he could give in to his impulse to demand Felix come to Skyhold immediately and submit to being hugged.

  
  


*

A couple of days into the break, and Dorian’s lab work was well underway, enough for him to feel entirely good about taking a day off to go and shoot his scenes for the VT film.

He was at the studio, in his bathrobe, rummaging through the costume rail looking for a bag with his name on it, when Bull approached him. 

“Hey, sorry I got your number out the files rather than, uh, a normal way. I hope you don’t mind,” he said. 

“Oh, no,” Dorian replied. He’d since decided that, given how protective Bull seemed to be over his people, he’d probably overreacted out of concern for Ina. “I don’t mind, as it’s you. I was surprised that you didn’t just text one of the others though. Was everything okay?”

He got a quick little prickle of anxiety that something might have happened to Reece or Golni, having not seen or heard from them since the night of Ina’s date.

Bull shook his head, though. “Nah, I just sort of did it on impulse. Krem accuses me of not stopping and thinking when I’m worried about somebody. Which, that’s just BS.”

“And you should know,” Dorian replied smartly, and Bull gave a grunt of laughter and shoved him lightly on the shoulder. “Doing okay with your lines?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s nice to have a chance to use my old Tevene skills.” He was to speak all his lines in Tevene, with subtitles on screen, and Varric’s writing used the idea to good comedic effect, making much of the fact that Dorian’s character and the pirates couldn’t really understand each other.

“I can’t wait to see how that turns out, should be a good laugh if Varric’s idea comes through. What are you looking for here?” he asked.

Dorian stepped back from the rail and regarded it with a frown. “My costume. Dalish told me she’d seen it, but it’s not on the rail.”

Bull reached out and ran his hand over the hangers that were there, counting under his breath. “Huh, that’s weird,” he said. “Ask Krem, he might know.”

Dorian nodded and left the room, picking his way through the small but busy crowd of people who were changing, being made up, or just generally jostling for space. After only one failed attempt, he managed to find the small office that Krem spent most of his time in and knocked on the door.

“S’okay Rocky,” Krem yelled from inside, and Dorian was pushing the door open before he even considered that Krem would possibly appreciate a heads-up that he wasn’t Rocky.

Dorian stepped into the room. Krem looked up at him and froze. Dorian looked down at what Krem had spread out on the desk.

There was silence, for a very tense minute.

“Is that…”

“Dorian, what-”

“It is! That’s-”

“Dorian, shut up!” Krem hissed. “You are going to forget you bloody saw this! You can’t tell anyone!”

“Maker, are you embarrassed?” Dorian breathed.

Krem scowled at him like he wanted to kill him with his eyes alone.

Before Krem could grab it away from him, Dorian scooped up the garment spread over the desk and held it up. It was very clearly his costume for the film, as he recognised it from the sketches. It was a sort of loincloth arrangement, a long strip of fabric that would be passed between his legs and fastened with a belt around his waist. But far from just being a little naughty bit of frippery to be cast aside as soon as possible, Krem had somehow made it quite strikingly pretty. The ivory coloured fabric had been scattered with rose gold sequins, an open jar of which still sat on the desk, and with tiny, carefully embroidered stars. The decorations were crowded together at either end of the strip, and became increasingly sparse towards the middle, until the centre, the section of fabric that would actually be against Dorian’s crotch, was mercifully bare.

“This is lovely,” Dorian exclaimed. “You did it all by hand?”

His and Krem’s gaze both flicked towards the needle, still laden with a strand of gold embroidery thread, in Krem’s hand. Krem sighed.

“I’ll be done in a few more minutes, okay? I just saw it on the rack and it needed a bit… more.”

Dorian handed the fabric back to him, watching with rapt interest as Krem carefully spread it out and began sewing on a new star with rapid strokes of the needle.

“How did you learn to make costumes?” Dorian asked.

Krem sighed and left him hanging for a few beats before he answered. “My Dad is a tailor, he taught me. We thought I might follow in his footsteps, before I joined the army.”

“Do you make a lot of the costumes? Why don’t you want anyone to know?”

“Yes, I sew everything we need that we can’t buy. And I don’t want anybody to know because if I tell them I will be forever inundated with people wanting me to take up their trouser legs or let out their dresses or somehow make new fabric appear in a tear, or sew fucking  _ vinyl _ , or something. There’s always something.”

He caught Dorian’s eye and gesturing threateningly at him with the needle, said; “Don’t. Tell. Anybody.”

“Oh no, of course not,” Dorian said contritely, because being threatened with an embroidery needle by Krem was somehow just as intimidating as being threatened with a knife by a pro-slavery sympathiser (an experience for which Dorian unfortunately had context).

Krem sewed a few more stars, added a sequin or two, then nodded sternly at the garment, put it back on it’s hanger, checked the bag of accoutrements attached, and handed it over to Dorian.

“You know how to put it on?”

“Of course.”

Krem nodded at him and waved him towards the office door. “Best get somebody to help you with the plug though, it’s pretty big.”

And Dorian was out the door before that really sank in.

*

Of course there was a plug, he should have expected it. Marit was well endowed, and the scene required them to leap right from one sided shouting match to sex, so of course Dorian needed to be ready. And it made sense as well, given that his character was a sex slave. He blamed all that exam marking for the lack of forethought on his part.

Fortunately, Anders was in the dressing room and overheard him talking to Dalish about it, and he very kindly offered his doctorly expertise to help Dorian get it into place. It wasn’t the largest Dorian had ever seen, but it was rather a big item to have inside oneself while trying to get dressed. It was gold coloured silicon, with a big fake pink gem on the end, and Anders, who could be quite gentlemanly as long as one kept him off the topic of politics, told Dorian it suited him.

He elected to kneel at the mirror while Dalish did his make up, happy to discover that she had a little padded folding footstool under her station for that exact purpose. So, beautifully made up and coated from head to toe in slightly pearlescent skin oil (all the more effective due to him having been ordered to the mens’ aesthetician a couple of days before for a thorough wax, sex slaves apparently being barred from body hair), Dorian got himself into his costume. The loin cloth, which hung to his ankles, fastened up with a thin gold cord around his hips, complimented by a good deal of gold jewellery; his own nipple and nose piercings, ornate hooped earrings, heavy gold bangles on his wrists and ankles, and two thin little chains, one connecting his nipple rings and another connecting his left earring to his nose ring. He walked out of the dressing room into a small crowd of performers and staff gathered around the make up stations and struck a dramatic pose. The whistles and loud exclamations he got in response were very nice indeed. He considered sending Krem a card.

He was whisked away by Stitches then, to have a few photographs taken by Miss Charter for the promotional side of things, and was finally allowed into the sound stage.

Things were nearly ready in there; the set was small-ish, as a cabin on a ship should be, and lit to resemble the light from oil lamps. A large four poster bed, draped in heavy velvet covers, stood at the centre, under a good facsimile of a diamond paned stained glass window on one wall, and there was a jumble of chests and dressers overflowing with fabrics and chunks of what he thought was supposed to be metal ores, around it. Opulent, but chaotic, it seemed to suit the scene perfectly.

Carver, who was acting as runner to Grim’s direction, told him harriedly to take a seat and wait a few minutes. Dorian moved in the direction he was shooed in, but wasn’t about to sit while he had that bloody plug in him. Either it’d hurt or he’d enjoy it a bit too much.

Marit was there, dressed very fetchingly in loose fitting britches held up with a thick sash, and a white wrap-around shirt with the sleeves raggedly torn off. He was a very good looking chap; he was big and powerful as most qunari men were but, rather than Bull’s powerlifter bulk, he had a leaner, more toned build. His complexion was a very smooth, deep brown-grey tone, and his hair was bright white and cropped short, lying in thick curls against his scalp. His horns grew from his temples to curl backwards in even, glossy segments, the tips sitting an inch or so behind his ears. At the moment, his attractive face was drawn into a moue of displeasure, and Dorian immediately felt a twinge of concern about him.

Carver approached, glanced between them, then gestured Dorian aside and led him over to Grim.

None of them seemed to appreciate how challenging walking around with a six inch butt plug up your backside was, but Dorian went along in proper sportsmanlike attitude.

“There’s a problem with Marit,” Carver said, voice low.

“It can’t be that he doesn’t look the part,” Dorian opined, and Grim rolled his eyes at him.

“The Chargers have been talking,” Carver said, glancing at Grim to make sure it was okay to go on and getting a short nod. “He’s done great with photos, but he gets bad nerves on any video and it really shows. No idea if it’s stage fright or what, but this is his last chance. We basically can’t go wrong with a VT piece, it’ll sell whatever happens, but if he flubs it again that’s his career done with.”

Grim grunted at that, and Carver nodded at him as if he’d said something coherent. “Well, yeah, he could probably still do the photography side of things, but not videos.” He turned to Dorian and sighed. “I thought we ought to warn you; I know you’re really psyched up for this, but it might not be… all you hoped.”

Dorian glanced over at Marit, who looked like a student waiting in the school hallway for their Harrowing. He was clutching the sides of his seat and glancing around nervously. 

“May I try and calm him down a bit?”

Carver frowned. “What are you going to do?”

Dorian shrugged. “Seduce him? I don’t know, there’s got to be something I can do. I’m a man of resource.”

Carver and Grim looked to each other. Grim grunted and shrugged.

“Go for it, can’t make it any worse,” Carver interpreted for him.”

Dorian nodded and headed back over to Marit.

Slowly and carefully, Dorian headed back over to Marit.

The other man saw him approaching and looked up, offering a weak smile of greeting. Dorian stopped in front of him and put his hands on his hips.

“I can’t sit down and it’s all your fault,” he told Marit, having always had extraordinarily good luck in being blunt.

“Um...sorry?”

“I should think so! If your dick weren’t so big, I wouldn’t have to have such a big plug stuck in me.”

“Oh! Um… I can’t really do anything about that though.” 

Bless him, he was a dear. Dorian almost felt bad for startling him. “My feet are killing me. Oh!” he pointed at Marit’s lap. “May I sit there?”

Marit gulped, then sat back in his chair and little and nodded. Dorian swept his draping loincloth neatly around his legs and perched on Marit’s lap, sitting side on to him. Maker, he had wonderful thigh muscles!

“You look as nervous as a cat,” Dorian told him. “It’s not because of me, is it?”

Marit shook his head, then looked mournfully across the room, where Grim and Carver were talking to some of the camera operators. He sighed.

“Oh,” Dorian said, putting as much meaning as possible into the syllable.

“You… did you hear about…”

“I did hear a little rumour,” Dorian offered. “About you having some trouble with your performances.”

All at once, Marit looked like he was about to burst into tears.

“Oh, darling!” Dorian cried, channelling Mae, and put his arms around him. “Darling, don’t worry. Why don’t you tell me about it? What is it that gets you so nervous?”

He put on his best ‘caring’ face, the one he’d copied from Wynne.

“I don’t even know,” Marit sighed, voice thick and croaky. “As soon as I get on camera I feel so self conscious and it messes with me.”

“It wasn’t the same with photographs though,” Dorian pressed. “A couple of people have told me your photo shoots were great.”

Marit nodded. “I don’t know why film is different. And because I know I’m going to be nervous, I get more nervous in the run up to it, and...ugh, maybe I should just give up. Somebody else could do this scene with you.”

“Oh hush,” Dorian said, pulling one of Marit’s arms around himself before returning to his loose hug around the other man’s neck. “Nobody would look as good as you in that shirt. Tell me, do you get nervous having sex with a lover?”

Marit looked uncomfortable. “No,” he said, the word coming out half question. He didn’t seem inclined to expand on that, so Dorian caught his eye and stared at him until he spilled. “I guess not. Well, only a little, at first. I didn’t exactly… have the most experience when I started work here. Dalish told me it’s be okay, but it doesn’t seem…” He trailed off into a sigh.

“Well, my friend,” Dorian said gently. “It seems to me that the only way to get better is to bull your way through until you get the experience you need.”

“Like it’s that easy,” Marit said sadly, and tightened his hold on Dorian a bit. Dorian would never have expected that sitting on a man’s lap in his current state of dress would have led to him being used as a cuddle blanket, but life was full of surprises. 

That was a thought.

“Marit, do you find me attractive?” he asked.

“Y-yeah!” Marit replied, naturally, as he wasn’t blind.

“If we were to meet in a bar, say, and I propositioned you, would you sleep with me?”

His skin flushed a touch darker. “Yeah.”

“Well, why don’t we play pretend a little,” Dorian suggested. He leaned in close and whispered into Marit’s ear, voice pitched as low and seductive as he could make it. “You see, one of the reasons I’ve been so looking forward to shooting this scene is that it’s sort of a fantasy of mine. Forget the cameras. Forget the film. Let’s role play, just you and me. I’ll be a sex slave, chained up and stir crazy, you be a handsome pirate come to give me a thrill that my captain never could, and whisk me away. Doesn’t that sound  _ delicious _ ?”

He drew back to look at Marit’s face; the other man’s mouth hung open, cheeks still flushed and pupils wide.

Dorian kissed him.

It took a minute, but soon enough Marit was eagerly licking at his mouth, one big hand stroking Dorian’s bare thigh, his brawny body starting to relax.

Dorian had the feeling that they were getting some looks from around the studio, but he decided he didn’t give a fuck. Marit was a lovely kisser, inexpert but earnestly eager, and if it helped him get over his stage fright, all to the good.

Some time later, Dorian became vaguely aware of his name being called and tore himself away, licking his lips. Carver was standing behind him, looking ever so slightly weirded out. He had no excuse to make that face, he worked in a damn porn studio.

“Need you for lighting checks,” Carver said.

Dorian nodded and climbed up out of Marit’s lap, wincing slightly as the plug touched a very nice place and made his leg think it was liquid for a few seconds. As Carver walked off, he turned back to Marit and leaned down to put their faces close together.

“Give me a thrill, won’t you?” he said sweetly.

“Yeah,” Marit breathed. The nerves weren’t gone, but they were all but overwhelmed by something else. Arousal and eagerness and anticipation.

All reactions perfectly suited to the experience of Dorian Pavus.

Dorian blew him a little kiss and walked away with as much swing in his hips as he could give without the plug driving him around the bend.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, this is happening. Dorian strikes me very much as the sort who would lend a fellow person a hand with their sexual hang ups if the context was right.  
> BTW, I meant to say at the end of last chapter, but my concepts for the four 'Inquisitors' in this story are; Marit - stabby rogue, Golni - archer rogue, Reece - mage, and Ina - two handed weapon using warrior. 
> 
> And I was inordinately proud of Solarse Crevisse-Chinne.


	17. Kidnapped by Burly Qunari Pirates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian has the *best* day!  
> ...Almost

In the ship’s cabin, among jumbled heaps of wealthy goods and lit by warm lamp light, a beautiful young man lay languidly on the bed, the sheets rumpled around him. A luxurious sweep of glittering fabric hung from his waist, covering barely any of him in spite of its volume, leaving his long, strong legs and sculpted torso nude, but for gleams of gold jewellery. His handsome face, though relaxed, appeared unhappy and frustrated. As if to give a hint as to why, the camera’s gaze swept down and studied the length of gold chain that led from one of the heavy anklets he wore to a bedpost, leashing the man in place.

 

A heavy thump sounded against the cabin door, and the young man flinched to alertness. 

Another, harder thump, a yell rendered incoherent through the thickness of the door, and the man rose to a sitting position, tense and frowning.

 

With a final, powerful crash, the door flew open and a large qunari man, dressed in shabby seafaring garb, thundered through. The shot focused on his face as he stared around at the treasure heaped in corners of the room, a grim smile on his face. Then he turned to the young man, and his eyes lit up hungrily.

 

[“Who are you? What are you doing here?”] the young man demanded, rising to his feet at the bottom of the bed, his face a snarl of anger and offense. He spoke in old Tevene, the heavy consonants ticking easily from his tongue. The pirate looked at him with his head cocked to one side, clearly not understanding. He dropped the bundle of burlap he was holding and took a step toward the bed, making the young man step back with a yelp, and bent to pick up a loop of the long gold chain that lay on the rug. His gaze travelled assessingly from the bedpost to the young man’s ankle.

 

“A sex slave?” he murmured. He tugged on the chain, forcing the slave to take a step towards him.

 

[“What did you say?! I suppose that dried out wretch of a Captain has told you you can have a go at me?”] the slave spat angrily. [“Well be warned, savage, I won’t simply submit!”]

 

“I’ve no idea what you’re saying, but you’re awful pretty when you scowl,” the pirate mused. He took hold of the slave by the upper arm, pushing him onto the bed. “I can’t imagine that dried out old Captain of yours ever gave you much to keep you occupied.”

 

Glaring, arms folded, the slave snarled at him; [“I suppose you think I’m just going to lie here and let you entertain yourself with me, but I warn you, I’ll leave as many scars on you as I have on the other skivvies he’s sent to soften me up! What makes you think you- oh!”]

 

The pirate had dropped his belt and sash to the floor and pushed down his britches to reveal a cock of quite remarkable proportions.

 

[“Oh… Well, I suppose you are such a very strong man, there’s nothing really I can do about it,”] the slave decided quickly, and knelt up on the bed, holding his arms out.

 

Still in his britches and shirt, the tight garments clinging in place in spite of the lack of a belt, the pirate climbed onto the bed and gathered the slave in his arms, kissing his beautiful lips posessively. They moaned into one another’s mouths, the slave’s hand slipping around the pirate’s cock. The pirate’s fingers found the cord at the slave’s waist and pulled the bow loose, and the slave drew back from the kiss as his decorous loincloth puddled on the sheets between his knees. The pirate scooped up the fabric in one hand and threw it away from them (one of the cameras got a great shot of the fluttering fabric flying towards it and draping over the lens).

 

Nude but for his jewellery, the aroused slave twisted around on the bed, falling to his hands and knees and holding his ass in the air like an offering. The base of a plug, decorated with a large jewel, was visible between the plump cheeks of his ass, and the pirate stroked his palms up and down the smaller man’s thighs, leering appreciatively at the sight of it, before seizing the plug and drawing it out with a long, slow pull.

 

The slave let out a shivery moan, his voice stuttering and rising to a dramatic cry as the pirate unceremoniously eased his cock in to replace the plug.

 

“Fuck,” the pirate moaned, pulling halfway out and thrusting back in slow. “To hell with the gold, you must be worth more than any of the other treasure on this ugly damn ship!”

 

They fucked hard, the bed shaking underneath them, the pirate demanding and possessive, the slave arching and ecstatic underneath him as he was fucked up the bed until he was left clinging to the headboard. At that point, the pirate pulled out of him, grabbed him by the hips, and flipped him onto his back, giving him barely a second to find his bearings before yanking the slave’s ass into his lap, hoisting long legs up onto his shoulders, and pushing back into him. They both cried out as their bodies came together with a sharp slap, and in moments they’d regained their earlier pace, the slave clinging to the sheets in an effort to return the thrusts. 

 

The slave gave a great, wailing cry as the pirate’s fingers closed around his erection, another moments later when the first spurt of come erupted from him and splattered across his chest and stomach. His mouth hung open, whirls of sound coming out of him with every exhalation as his orgasm surged through him, and soon the pirate’s breaths became ragged, his deep grunts becoming louder and louder as he too came. He pulled out further with each thrust, and soon the slave’s backside was dripping with semen, the continued thrusting working it into a froth around his hole. 

 

They slowly came to a stop, breathless and soaked with sweat.

 

[“That was better than usual,”] the slave conceded. [“What are you doing on the ship? You aren’t one of the Captain’s guests, are you.”]

 

“Wish I knew what you were saying, treasure,” the pirate murmured. He got up from the bed, wiped himself clean on a corner of the bedspread (to the slave’s haughty protest) and tugged his clothes back into place. Then he gathered up the burlap sack he had dropped by the door earlier and started loading valuables from the scattered heaps around the room into it. 

 

[“Are you robbing them? Good, they are all assholes,”] the slave said, and sank languidly back onto the bed. [“Although, I’ll probably be blamed for it. I wish  _ I _ could run off and be a thief.”]

 

The sack full, the pirate stood and looked back to the bed. “I wonder if you’d like it on a pirate ship?” he mused, looking over the naked beauty with deep consideration.

 

The script here called for him to search the room for the key to the chains, set the slave free, and lead him, nude, out of the room.

 

Instead, he set down the sack, stooped to gather up the slave’s chain, and gave him a calculating look.

 

The slave sat up, alarmed. [“What are you doing?”] he demanded.

 

The pirate took a length of the chain in both hands, stretched it out in front of him at eye level, body angled to give one of the camera’s a clear view. Then he just… snapped the chain. Pulled it apart like there was nothing to it.

 

The slave gave a sharp little gasp.

 

[“You… you can’t, I’ll… he’ll-”]

 

The pirate stepped smartly around to the side of the bed, bent over the slave, slipped an arm around his waist, and stood, hoisting the slave easily onto his shoulder in spite of his attempts to squirm free. Then he simply stooped to pick up the sack and headed off out the door, the slave sputtering and wiggling all the way.

 

*

 

“Bit of a, uh, diversion from the stage directions,” Carver noted calmly, shortly after calling cut. 

 

Grim, standing next to him, looked at Marit with an eyebrow raised.

 

Looking deeply embarrassed, Marit set Dorian down on his feet and dropped the sack.

 

“Surely it was no bad thing,” Dorian offered. “I rather liked it. It was quite sexy, just snapping it like that,” and he reached out to pat Marit on the arm. Marit awkwardly raised a hand to the back of his neck and flushed.

 

Carver and Grim looked at each other and appeared to have a brief conversation composed almost entirely of eyebrow movements and snuffing noises.

 

“Yeah, we’ll go with it,” Carver declared after a couple of minutes, and Dorian felt Marit relax next to him.

 

Carver and Grim moved off to go over the scene on the computer, and Grim touched Marit on the shoulder as he passed him, a gesture that spoke volumes. Dalish came over to hand Dorian his bathrobe and give Marit a playful punch to the stomach.

 

Marit turned to Dorian with a grin. “I think I did okay,” he said. “What do you think? It felt okay. Didn’t it?”

 

“You did wonderfully,” Dorian replied. “And now we know what to do in the future so you don’t end up worrying yourself into a stew.”

 

Marit grinned, and leaned down to kiss Dorian’s cheek. “Thank you,” he said, quiet and earnest.

 

Dorian headed off for his shower glowing with pride.

 

*

 

Dorian had a very hot shower and got his make up reapplied, then sat in the pink room wrapped up in his bathrobe with some coffee and a book, waiting to be called for his next scene. They were shooting a scene with Isabela ranting about being horny on a ship full of gay men, one of the comedy high points of the film. Then the stage would be reset, and they would shoot Dorian being brought aboard by Marit and various pirates pleading with Isabela to be allowed to keep him aboard. And then, there would be an orgy scene.

 

Which Dorian was  _ very  _ much looking forward to. 

It was true what Delrin had said to him in the bathroom that first day he’d come to the studios to make a film; sex on demand wasn’t exactly satisfying, not in the same way that sex purely for enjoyment was. 

However, that didn’t mean it couldn’t be just as fun.

 

Finally, Krem stuck his head round the door and told Dorian that it was time to start. Garrett, Rylen and Delrin were waiting in the pink room too, and Krem rounded them up as well. They trooped into the sound stage together, Dorian dropping his bathrobe to put his loincloth back on (with some very polite assistance from Rylen who was rather a sweetheart), and did a quick run through on the deck set before going for a take. Marit scooped Dorian up in his arms and carried him onto the ship, showing him off proudly to the others. Dorian flirted, delivering his nicely witty lines in perfect Tevene, and the scene went swimmingly. Cut was called, and everyone trooped off the set over to the other side of the sound stage, where the lower levels of the ship were set up.

 

Dagna was bustling about there, adjusting the lighting and tutting over wiring, while Bull, dressed in normal clothes as his own scenes in the film had already been shot, stood nearby keeping her entertained with some story about a baby hart getting into somebody’s house.

 

“It just isn’t right,” she sighed, waving vaguely at the set. “We need it to flicker, but I can’t bear to use real flame and the electric ones just look…”

 

“Cheap?” Bull suggested.

 

“Yes! Ugh.”

 

“What about veil fire?” Delrin suggested, pointing at Dorian. “You could do that, right?”

 

“Well yes, but it’ll make everything look green.”

 

“Green’ll do,” Bull said.

 

“I’ll get my wand,” Dorian replied.

 

Which meant he had to walk through reception to get to the locker room, in his loincloth because he couldn’t be bothered to take it off and put it back on again (and because he liked the saucy comments he got whenever he passed anyone in the hallways).

Which meant that the anti-porn protestors gathered outside the doors got a real eyeful of him. He waved at them in a kingly manner as he passed.

 

“Those morons still outside?” Krem asked him when he returned to the sound stage, wand in hand.

 

“Yes, and I’m sure they’re all very cold and questioning if they couldn’t be doing something more useful with their time,” Dorian replied.

 

“Doubt it,” Krem snorted.

 

“That’s very smart,” Delrin said, gesturing to Dorian’s wand, and Dorian preened a little. It was very beautiful, in the ostentatious way so typical of Quarinas craftsmen. Smoke hardened ebony, set with opal fragments and milky quartz, with a decorative wrist chain strung with tiny charms. He stepped into the set where Dagna stood waiting with a handful of fake sconces, into each of which she had hastily stuffed a scrap of fabric, in the gaps where lightbulb fittings must have been. Dorian carefully lit each one and waited to make sure they didn’t go out while she was setting them up. When he turned around, the rest of his suitors had arrived on set.

 

As well as Garrett, Rylen and Delrin, who he had of course worked with before, there was also a dwarvish man called Havel who Dorian had seen around but never worked with, a very tall human man called Amund who had been recruited in the same open auditions as Dorian but had only recently made his debut, and Fenris, who Dorian couldn’t help but feel a tad starry eyed over. He was the star of one of Dorian’s old favourites, the titular elf in that Charge! Studios classic, ‘Hot Cranky Elf Covered in Spunk’. He was  _ very  _ hot. And very cranky, it seemed.

 

“Looks good, nice and nautical. Bilgey,” Bull said of the newly lit set, crossing back over to them from the door to the pink room. He was holding a sheaf of papers, and he stopped by a table in the middle of the room, moved a coffee pot and a pile of Dagna’s tools to one side, and spread the papers out on the surface. Everyone gathered around.

 

“This is the scene, guys,” Bull said, gesturing to the papers. “This is how we want it to unfold.”

 

“You drew a comic strip?” Fenris said wearily. Rylen chuckled.

 

“How are we supposed to know who is who?” Amund asked, peering close. “All the figures look the same.”

 

“No they don’t, look!” Bull protested, pointing.

 

“Oh yeah,” said Garrett. “You drew in my scars, and Fenris’ tattoos. Dorian, that’s you, I can see the moustache.”

 

Fenris sighed. Rylen chuckled again.

 

“So let’s run through it,” Bull said, pointing at the first frame of the comic with a pencil. “Dorian comes down the steps to the deck with Garrett and Delrin, the rest of you are sitting in there and get up as he enters. Look  _ keen _ , guys, like you want to eat him alive”

 

“Oh goody,” said Dorian, and Rylen threw his head back and laughed.

 

*

 

Everyone was taking their places, and Dorian couldn’t stop grinning.

 

“You feeling okay about all of this?” Bull asked him, and suddenly Dorian’s excitement spiked as he realised; this would be the first time Bul had been present for one of his shoots. The man he so admired, his silly crush, was going to see him in all his glory.

 

“Absolutely,” he replied.

 

“You need a break, just yell stop, okay? We don’t want anybody getting overwhelmed.”

 

“Have no fear,” Dorian said. “I love things like this. Though I probably should warn you, I tend to get a little bit spacey after group sex.”

 

Bull gave him a sidelong look.

 

“In a good way. Lots of endorphins and such. It just sort of gets amplified; it may take me a few minutes to stop flopping around on the floor and smiling.”

 

Bull grinned. “I kinda look forward to seeing that.”

 

*

 

Dorian was very,  _ very  _ happy. 

 

He’d lost all sense of the passage of time, and so wasn’t very clear on how long he’d been here. He wasn’t really aware of much at all, in fact, beyond the ring of bodies closing him in. Which wasn’t a  _ bad  _ thing, but the thought did occasionally flicker into his mind that it might affect the impression he gave on film.

 

He didn’t really care though.

 

He was kneeling astride Amund, scrunched up wads of clothing providing padding under his knees, and Amund’s thick cock settled nice and deep inside him. He was leaning forwards, giving plenty of room to Delrin, who knelt behind him, cock tucked in alongside Amund’s and arms around Dorian’s waist to help keep him steady while they both carefully thrust in and out. Garrett and Fenris were in front of him, hip to hip, and were alternating between taking turns to fuck his mouth, and companionably sharing it, their cockheads bumping together inside the circle of Dorian’s lips. To his left was Rylen, to his right Havel, his hands clasped around each of them, tugging and stroking in what was probably a very unsatisfying pattern, but they couldn’t really complain when there were so many lovely things splitting his concentration.

 

There was saliva sliding down his chin, lube running down his wrists and inner thighs, and a gradually increasing amount of come splashed over his skin, some of it his own.

 

It was heavenly.

 

Somewhere in there, the door slammed open and Isabela stepped in to loudly deliver her line of “Oh for fuck’s sake, they’re all at it!” and slammed back out.

 

Dorian barely noticed.

 

*

 

“You okay there, mate?”

 

“Mmmm.”

 

“Yeah, I think he’s okay.” That was Garrett.

 

“Should we get Stitches?” Delrin.

 

“I don’t think that’s necessary.” Bull. “He warned me he might get a little like this. We’ll just keep an eye on him.”

 

Dorian sighed happily and curled a little tighter into the blanket pile he was currently occupying on the floor of the set. He honestly didn’t give a fuck about anything and it was a very refreshing and enjoyable sensation. He could hear people moving around, Dagna explaining to somebody how veilfire worked, furniture and equipment being moved, Bull laughing at something.

 

It was nice, being amid the bustle and not having to engage with it. Relaxing.

 

Some time later, some feet stopped nearby him and Stitches leaned down to look at him.

 

“Yeah, he’s just a bit tired and full of hormones. Dorian? Hey, Dorian, do you want somebody to carry you to the bathroom? Get cleaned up?”

 

Hearing those words made Dorian suddenly very aware of the fact that he was sticking to the blankets, and to himself, and he nodded. Moments later he was being lifted off the floor, and he sighed happily once again, eyes still closed sleepily, as he was turned and carried away out of the sound stage. He was coming back to himself a little; he could tell where they were in the building by counting the doors that opened and closed. They were about to pass the make up room, in fact, and he heard that door open with a little squeak he’d never really noticed himself noticing before…

 

And he heard Marit’s voice coming from inside, talking to Dalish.

 

He’d sort of assumed that it was Marit carrying him.

He opened his eyes and looked.

 

Oh Maker.

Bull was carrying him.

He was naked and wrapped in blankets and covered in seven people’s worth of spunk and Bull was carrying him through the studio in his huge, powerful arms like it was nothing.

 

This… this was the  _ best  _ day.

 

Dorian became aware that he was just staring open mouthed at Bull’s face, and was trying to make himself  _ stop  _ doing that when Bull shouldered open the door to the showers and attempted to set Dorian on his feet. Dorian tried to help, but his legs were very wobbly and Bull had to hold onto him by the shoulders for a minute or so while Dorian struggled to make his knees behave properly, like a newborn halla. Bull was good about it, just murmuring reassurances and smiling good humouredly while Dorian staggered about and clutched at a sink.

 

Finally, by going hand over hand along the wall and into a stall, Dorian managed to get himself into a shower cubicle and clung to the little rail on the wall, the existence of which he’d never really appreciated before. He cleaned himself up (and cleaned himself out) until he was in as good a shape as he could get, and when he pulled the curtain open Bull was standing there holding out a towel for him.

 

“Thanks awfully,” Dorian said, accepting it. “Sorry I went a little odd.”

 

“Don’t worry about it, at least you warned me. You feeling okay?”

 

“Oh yes. Rather wonderful actually, though I don’t remember much detail of the scene, I’m afraid. Do you think it went well?”

 

Bull gave him a smile that redefined ‘salacious’. “Shit yeah. I think you’re going to make us a goddamn fortune with that scene.”

 

Dorian grinned. “Oh, really? Well, I’m all cleaned up and refreshed now, I think I’m ready for whatever you decide to throw at me next.”

 

Bull’s smile faded, and his eye stared at Dorian’s face for a second, then tracked down his body. Then came back up. He smiled, but it was smaller than the last one, smaller and more focussed.

 

“You wouldn’t thank me right now, pretty sure.”

 

Dorian felt heat blossom across his face. He hadn’t actually meant that as a flirt, but-

 

“I mean… I’m joking. And you’re sore, right?” Bull said, his cool veneer cracking slightly.

 

“Hah, yes, a bit,” Dorian replied. “You’re right, I’d better get home and sit on a pillow for the rest of the afternoon.”

 

“‘Kay, sounds like a plan,” Bull replied, grinning a little awkwardly. 

 

*

 

Dorian would have said that nothing could possibly ruin his day, but that was proven wrong when he got home and found he had received a letter from his father’s lawyer.

 

That fucking bastard.

_ Those  _ fucking bastards!

 

He skimmed through it quickly, then poured himself a stiff drink and read it properly. In very veiled terms, it advised him that his father had found out about his new ‘non-academic activities’ and wanted him to stop. (It didn’t say why, but Dorian could safely assume that Charge’s videos, though technically banned for import into Tevinter, had done their usual job of popping up everywhere and the Pavus line was starting to feel embarrassed.) To induce him to stop, Dorian was offered a very large sum of money, no strings attached, to be paid in a lump sum.

 

It was tempting, he wouldn’t lie.

 

But accepting felt wrong right away, and as he considered it further he found that he didn’t want to give up Charge!, he didn’t want to accept bribes to change his lifestyle, he didn’t want to live off his family’s fortunes again.

And, as much as it stung to consider it, he didn’t really want to open up lines of communication with his father again, even through an intermediary. Not yet, at least. He didn’t trust his father not to take a mile when given an inch.

 

So he sat at his desk (on a pillow) and typed up a reply, wanting to get it done and out of the way as quickly as possible. He kept it to just a couple of paragraphs, as blandly phrased as he could manage, turning down the offer, advising that his personal life was none of certain persons’ business, and explaining that any further letters sent to him would be burned unread.

 

The mischievous little spark inside him did consider adding an incendiary postscript. 

 

‘If my father is really that upset about his friends having seen me suck a cock, I suggest he get more boring friends.’

 

‘Look out for my next film, in which I portray a slave who gets vigorously sodomised by a qunari.’

 

‘I would love to write more, but I spent the afternoon breaking my personal record for most dicks at once (six, up on a previous three, if you’re interested) and I’m very tired.’

 

No, maybe not.

 

With a sigh he sent it to print and prepared an envelope. Then, with letter in hand, he put fresh athletic clothes on his sore body and set off for the gym.

 

It may be late, but the heavy bag would probably be free at this time, and he really needed to punch something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I stole the chapter title from an awesome story by Tofsla, which you need to read if you haven't already; https://archiveofourown.org/works/5263679
> 
> Also, Marit is probably going to be okay in his career now. Dorian-booty is a panacea.  
> Also also, Halward Pavus is spending a lot of time sitting on the toilet with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands wondering what he did to deserve this (it was the fucking blood magic Halward, you prick).
> 
> If Dorian wasn't so sore, something might have happened there... hmmmm.
> 
> Also, my friend Jack told me that the ‘Hot Cranky Elf Covered in Spunk’ joke nearly killed him the first time I pulled it out in, what, chapter 4 maybe? So hopefully this hasn't finished him off.


	18. Get Ready to Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, yeah, it’s that time of year,” he began in slightly tired sounding, subdued tones. “I’m sure you’ve all noticed it’s cold as a Chanter’s titty, and all the stores are playing the worst music. But we’ll make it through, and you know why?”
> 
> He glanced around the room at all the faces, keen with expectation.
> 
> “Because me and Krem have been planning the CHARGE SATINALIA PARTY!”

The protesters were still outside the studio when Dorian walked in for the staff meeting the following week. It was late afternoon, and dark, and snowing, but there they were, waving signs with such cutting witticisms as ‘No Sex in MY City’ and ‘Down With This Sort of Thing’.

 

Dorian held his head up high and crunched past them through the snow, noting out the corner of his eye as a few of them recognised him.

 

“Whore! Defiler of the gift of your own body!”

“Ruiner of the innocent!”

“Y’all need Andraste!”

 

“How do you all know what I’ve been doing, unless you’ve watched my films?” Dorian yelled back, and threw them a saucy wink as he slipped in through the studio door.

 

“Pathetic bunch of idiots,” Garrett, passing through reception, muttered to Dorian, and he paused at the glass doors to make a vigorous wanking gesture at the crowd beyond. He and Dorian headed into the large meeting room together, cutting it fine enough that they had to take folding chairs from the stack by the door and scootch around the table until they could find a gap big enough to unfold them in. The room was full and buzzing with anticipation, and Dorian wondered why spirits were so high, until Bull entered...

 

Wearing the ugliest Satinalia sweater Dorian had ever seen. It was bright green, with a yoke patterned with dancing white nugs and a big, ugly picture of Satina wearing a Halla mask. He had a string of battery fairy lights looped around his horns, and was carrying a small plastic tree wrapped in matching lights, which he set down on the cabinet at the front of the room with an air of triumph.

 

There was modest applause, and Bull gave a bow before settling down into his seat next to Krem at the head of the table.

 

“So, yeah, it’s that time of year,” he began in slightly tired sounding, subdued tones. “I’m sure you’ve all noticed it’s cold as a Chanter’s titty, and all the stores are playing the  _ worst  _ music. But we’ll make it through, and you know why?”

 

He glanced around the room at all the faces, keen with expectation.

 

“Because me and Krem have been planning the CHARGE SATINALIA PARTY!” he yelled, and bounced to his feet pumping both hands in the air. The room erupted briefly into chaos; a couple of people leapt up onto the table amid the whoops and cheers, Garrett grabbed Dorian and crushed the air out of him with a hug, Isabella yanked her blouse open at the same moment that Zevran ripped off his velcro hemmed trousers and they both started dancing (not the first time Dorian had witnessed that reaction from the two of them), and somebody whipped out a wand and shot sparkles at the ceiling.

 

After a few minutes of gleeful chaos, things calmed down, and Bull helped Dalish down off the table before continuing.

 

“For those of you who started with us this year, it’s usually a great night, and this one’s going to be extra huge. We’re combining it with the launch party for the new VT movie-”

 

“Which we’ve decided we’re calling ‘Shivering Timbers’,” Krem interrupted.

 

“Right, so we’ll have a screening late afternoon and the party here in the studio afterwards.”

 

“Deets!” Isabella demanded, busily tucking ‘the girls’ back in.

 

“Two days after Satinalia, screening starts at five, party at seven thirty ‘til late,” Bull reeled off, “There’ll be a bar and buffet, wear something sexy.”

 

Another cheer went up, after which Bull added; “I mean, you don’t have to wear something sexy, it’s not work dress code. No flip flops or track suits though.”

 

“Yeah,  _ Garrett _ ,” said Carver.

 

“No fucking kilt, little brother,” Garrett replied.

 

“Aww,” said several voices around the table.

 

“And the film’ll be released on the 15th of Firstfall,” Bull finished. “We’ve released some promotional photos and a little trailer, and the hype is  _ great _ .” 

 

“Speaking of actual work,” Krem said loudly, and there was a chorus of sighs from around the table. “I’m gonna go over the filming schedule for the next couple of months. 

 

Dorian zoned out a little, looking around the room at his excited and intrigued colleagues, straining to listen to the threads of chat about the party he could pick up. It sounded like it would be quite the spectacle. He could hear somebody, he wasn’t sure who, telling her friend about some sort of conjuror act at last year’s bash that had led to two of the Chargers vanishing into a cabinet and turning up locked in Bull’s SUV in the parking lot over an hour later. Dorian assessed that it certainly wouldn’t be boring.

 

Krem went through half a dozen films and photoshoots that were upcoming, covering a few points here and there with the people involved, while Dorian peacefully people watched. He hadn’t been told about any projects for himself yet, though he was sure Krem would have something in mind for him. Soon enough, he heard his name, and looked up to see both Krem and Bull looking at him a little uncomfortably.

 

“We’ve had a lot of emails and feedback stuff about you, Dorian. Though, uh… maybe not what you might expect,” Krem said, uncharacteristically hesitant. 

 

“Emails from a certain type of person,” Skinner said darkly. “Persons who I would not tend to humour. Persons who I would prefer to stick sharp things in.” She gave Krem a narrow look.

 

He sighed. “Okay, it’s outside our usual style, but we figured… it’d be a seller. But we’re only going to do it if everyone involved is okay with it.”

 

“...Ominous,” said Dorian, feeling the eyes of the whole room on him.

 

Krem shook open a folded sheaf of papers and ran his eyes over the text briefly. “We’ve had a lot of requests for a historical film with a ‘vint - Cassian Corso specifically in almost every case - beating and raping an elf.”

 

“Maker!” Dorian exclaimed. Bull, he noticed, winced.

 

“We would have done something like this in the early days, ‘cause it’s guaranteed income,” he explained. “But we can pick and choose now. I’m not crazy about the idea, but it only seemed fair to run it by everyone. Zevran is up for it if you are.”

 

Dorian winced. “I’m not sure. It’s not the idea of the content that puts me off, it’s the knowledge of who would be watching it.”

 

A few people looked confused, but Krem got what he meant right away and nodded solemnly. “Racists.”

 

“Slavery apologists,” Dorian added.  


 

“Institutionalised rape apologists,” Krem finished. “Yeah, it’ll pretty much be just them. And your and Zev’s fans maybe, but mostly them.”

 

“Ew,” said Zevran. “I admit, I perhaps hadn’t thought this through as well as I should.”

 

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I could do it,” Dorian said finally, and Bull and Krem both scrunched up a bit of paper each and threw them aside, possibly more illustratively than through any actual need to do so.

 

The topic moved on to a large group photo shoot for a leather clothing manufacturer that the studio had a long standing relationship with, and the room overall relaxed. 

 

After fifteen minutes of sorting that out, Grim stepped out into the hallway and came back with two large cardboard boxes, which he set on the counter by the Satinalia tree and started cutting open. Bull saw him doing it and actually clapped his hands with glee.

 

“Who wants a calendar?” he yelled, and yet another whoop went up from everyone. Dorian joined in with gusto; he always loved getting his Charge! calendar, and it was even more exciting this year, as he was itching to see what his own photos looked like. Bull and Grim pulled stacks of calendars, smelling strongly of fresh print, from the boxes and began handing them around. “Enough for one of each run apiece,” Bull said loudly. The one with male models had a blue cover, the female pink, and the variety one had purple. Dorian duly took one of each, planning to send the blue one to Felix (with the warning that he shouldn’t look at Kingsway unless he wanted to see his best friend in a lace thong), the pink one to Sera, and the purple to Mae and Thorold. His own order for a copy of the male edition had been in place since before he’d even taken the job with Charge, so firmly established was its place in his life. 

 

As soon as he had a copy in his hands, he flipped through to Kingsway to see his own photos, the before and after, looking fantastic. The muted purple shade of the lace really set off his complexion, and Charter had done wonderful work with the lighting. He flipped through the other pages slowly, seeing a lovely one of Stitches (dressed as a construction worker and covered in dust, followed by him stepping out of the shower), of Michel (dolled up in make up and evening wear like a model, followed by him sitting at a dressing table in a sheer robe removing the make up), and finally, rather wonderfully, of Bull. He was shown working out in the gym, wearing only a very tight pair of shorts and some running shoes, squatting with a heavy dumbell across his shoulders. The second picture showed him in a bathtub full of bubbles, both legs and most of his upper torso sticking out of the water, the tub almost comically small in comparison to the size of him. Dorian couldn’t help but smile as he looked at the photos; there was something so endearing about Bull’s face in the bath one, a genuine happiness in the way he was smiling at the little yellow rubber ducky balanced on his knee.

 

There were exclamations and giggles all around the room, as people paged through the calendars, looking out for their friends. “Nice ass, Dorian,” Golni said from across the table, and he made a little bow.

 

Once the new ruckus calmed down, Krem dragged the meeting back to the topic of actual work and talked to a group of women about a new contract they had with a toy manufacturer that meant they were going to be using a different brand of strap on harness than usual for their filming of ‘Brides of Andruil VII’. This led to a small argument, during which Dorian and Garrett occupied themselves by flipping both their calendars to their own pages and making their photos kiss.

 

They, and the small group of people immediately surrounding them who had been watching them with amusement, snapped back to attention when Krem said;

 

“We need to start thinking about the next Ride The Bull.”

 

“Oh hell yeah!” said someone.

 

“The swimming coach one went down a storm, nice work Tessa,” Krem continued, and Tessa blew him a kiss. “We had a few ideas for new set ups, but eventually decided to go back to a theme we did way back in the early days; a medical setting. Bull’s going to be a patient getting a check up, the doctor’s hot and maybe kind of repressed, fairly standard. Last time we did medical for a RTB it was a female paramedic, so this time we’re going to go for a male doctor. Anybody got any suggestions?”

 

Pretty much every man who had ever been interested in another man in the room immediately raised his hand.

 

“Aw, guys, I’m touched!” Bull said, pressing his hands over his heart.

 

“You will be,” Tessa piped up.

 

“Michel would make a good doctor,” Rocky suggested. “He looks like a person who did, you know, school and stuff.”

 

“White lab coat?” Michel asked eagerly.

 

Krem shook his head. “We were thinking those mint green scrubs. Bit more modern.”

 

Michel winced; he was, possibly, fussier about his clothes than Dorian. And mint green would really wash him out.

 

“Aren’t you a doctor?” Dalish asked, and Dorian glanced around the room to see who she was addressing, before realising that she was looking at him.

 

“Ah, no. I’m working on a PHD, but even then I won’t be a  _ medical  _ doctor.”

 

“Look brainy though,” Rocky put in. All Chargers present turned to Dorian with intently thoughtful expressions. Moments later, everyone else joined in. It was unnerving in the manner of arriving at a Quarinas debutante ball, only nobody here was trying to act virginal.

 

“That’ll work,” Krem said eventually. “Dorian opposite Bull for sexy medical stuff. ‘Kay?”

 

“Sure,” Bull said brightly.

 

“Mm. Yeah,” Dorian said, wondering if it had come out as strangled as it sounded to his own ears.

 

The meeting continued, but Dorian barely heard a word of it.

 

He was going to be in a film with Bull.

He was going to be in a pornographic film with Bull.

HE WAS GOING TO RIDE THE BULL!

 

Ina caught his eye and gave him a look that he interpreted as asking him if he was okay. Maker knew what sort of face he was making, but he swept it away and gave her a smile and a nod.

 

Yes Ina, I’m absolutely fine, I’ve just discovered that I’m about to get to have sex with the man I’ve had a crush on for a substantial part of my life who turned out to be very clever and a genuinely decent person, and this crush was hard enough to keep a lid on when it was mostly centred in my groin and now I think my spine just had an orgasm, thank you so much for your interest in my well being.

 

And then another little wave of ‘I’m going to fuck Bull and everyone will see’ hit him and he had to fan himself with Sera’s calendar. 

 

The meeting wound down and the Chargers said their goodbyes and set off to get back to work in other parts of the building. Zevran came over to congratulate Dorian on his exciting new role, and to elicit his help in getting his tearaway trousers back on properly. Dorian had no idea if Zev was wearing them for a shoot or if he just owned them, but he helped him get the velcro realigned, then rose and left the meeting room. It was feeling very crowded, what with everyone milling about and chatting, and he needed a moment to think.

 

Out in an empty stretch of corridor, he leaned back against the wall and sighed. He was fantastic at sex, honestly, no brag. And he liked his work at the studio very much. And he liked Bull very much, knew with full confidence that a shoot with Bull would be a good experience.

 

So why was he suddenly so nervous?

 

Well, he knew the answer, didn’t he. If only the Maker-damned crush had stayed in his groin…

 

“Hey, Dorian, glad to catch you before you left.”

 

Dorian jerked upright at the sound of Bull’s voice, and managed not to lose his breath completely. 

 

“I just wanted a word,” Bull continued. He glanced around to make sure they were alone, then stepped up next to Dorian and leaned against the wall next to him, hands in his pockets, so casual. “I noticed you looked a little shook up at the meeting there, wanted to make sure you were okay. If you don’t want to do the film it’s cool. We can find somebody else.”

 

“No!” Dorian blurted. “No, no, it’s not… I absolutely want to do it.”

 

Bull eyed him carefully, and for a moment it was just like that first time he’d come to the studio for his audition; like Bull could see right through him. Maker, he’d already told the man things about him that hardly any other soul knew.

 

“Dorian, let me tell you something I’ve learned in my years of making porn, okay?”

 

Dorian nodded.

 

“Sex messes everybody up. That’s how Ina always puts it, anyway, and she seems to have a way with words. But even when you’ve got a really good attitude to it, and everything is great, sometimes other stuff can mess up the sex, and then it messes up you in turn. You get me?”

 

“Ye-ees?” Dorian tried.

 

Bull smiled at him. “I guess what I’m saying is, you have some feelings towards me that have been lurking around a while now, and you’re used to them just… being there. And now we’re going to have sex, in a professional context. And it’s a little weird, right?”

 

Dorian nodded vigorously, his tongue stuck dryly to the roof of his mouth.

 

“And, maybe it’s not as simple as usual for me either,” Bull admitted. “You’re a sweet guy,  Dorian. I mean, I’m fond of you, it’s not just pure fucking for show. I get it.”

 

“Oh,” Dorian said. His spine went all wobbly again. He had a brief flash of envy for the ease with which Bull said such things.

 

“So… I don’t know if you’d be into this, but how about we have a little fun together? Not for the cameras, just blow off some steam. Help us get our heads on right.”

 

Dorian felt like several different physiological systems of his body suddenly rearranged themselves. “Just… some nice fun?” he asked.

 

“Sure,” Bull replied, beaming at him. He glanced around again, more theatrically this time, and leaned down into Dorian’s space. “Though ‘nice’ isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

 

Dorian felt a smile spreading over his face. “Nice is awfully overrated,” he agreed. “Were you thinking… now?”

 

“You up for it?”

 

Dorian considered it. For all of two seconds. “Absolutely.”

 

Bull grinned and ran his palm down Dorian’s arm, shoulder to elbow, leaving a trail of warmth. “Great,” he said. “I just gotta go settle something in the office. Why don’t you go and wait in my dressing room, I’ll be right with you.”

 

“Don’t keep me waiting too long,” Dorian told him, and set off for the corridor that led to the dressing rooms, at the same time Bull headed off in the opposite direction. 

 

As soon as Bull was out of sight, Dorian allowed himself a little fist pump.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... some partying is going to happen :D
> 
> Thanks to everyone that has been waiting patiently for me to update, I know it's been a long time and I'm glad you've stuck around.
> 
> I have been trying to work in the idea of somebody wearing tearaway clothing in order to whip their trousers off in an inappropriate setting since I began this, and I'd sort of decided that it would be one of the Nightingale Security/Origins gang, though I wasn't sure who, or when it would happen, but then I decided to just logic it out. Alistair and Leliana would ruin it by getting the giggles, Sten would screw up the timing on purpose, Wynne would look at you askance for suggesting it, Oghren would just be constantly sans trou, Morrigan's outfit is too complex to accomodate it, Shale and Dog don't even wear trousers in the first place, and Loghain can just fall down a fucking hole. So, Zevran it is. And there he goes.  
> In context of the actual narrative, I think he probably kept them from a stripping engagement some years before and has worked them into his normal wardrobe.
> 
> Oh, and points to anyone who can spot the Father Ted reference.


End file.
